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What happened to the cpo inventory?

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I think this give further credence to the rumours of a pending update to the Model S. Seems like they could be preparing for an influx of trade ins. Elon likes to drop more than one announcement at a time so maybe at the Model 3 launch.
 
I think this give further credence to the rumours of a pending update to the Model S. Seems like they could be preparing for an influx of trade ins.

I still stand deadfast that there is no pending Model S update, but there are several other threads for that, so I won't go into that here.

Elon likes to drop more than one announcement at a time so maybe at the Model 3 launch.

Quite the contrary -- at the last several public events, people were predicting all kinds of things to be thrown in, like Apple events, but really, they never do. The "D" event was just dual motors and AP (and nothing about Model X). The Powerwall event was *just* the Powerwall, whereas most people were expecting a "just one more thing" to reveal the production Model X. Never happened. The Model X reveal people were hoping he'd announce something else -- a Model S refresh (not happening), Model 3 design (didn't happen), AP v2 (didn't happen), etc. No, I think Elon likes to keep the launch announcements limited to just one thing at a time. I think he really doesn't want to be compared to Steve Jobs and start pulling, the "oh, one more thing" gimmick.
 
A couple of thoughts:
1) Mid-Feb (mid-quarter) which leaves time to put them on a boat to "somewhere" and still have them booked as sold this quarter. Are there incentives ending soon in Denmark, Europe, China, etc.? Perhaps these were sold out of the US.
2) Put into service as test drive vehicles for the Mar 31st Model 3 in-store ordering. This doesn't make much sense because they were already in the CPO inventory and hence they shouldn't need any changes to be used for test drives.
 
A couple of thoughts:
1) Mid-Feb (mid-quarter) which leaves time to put them on a boat to "somewhere" and still have them booked as sold this quarter. Are there incentives ending soon in Denmark, Europe, China, etc.? Perhaps these were sold out of the US.
2) Put into service as test drive vehicles for the Mar 31st Model 3 in-store ordering. This doesn't make much sense because they were already in the CPO inventory and hence they shouldn't need any changes to be used for test drives.
Only thought about #1 is that not sure how feasible US-spec cars would be for other markets. I know there are right-hand drive versions and European charge port differences, not sure of any other differences but sure there are some. Who knows though.
 
Maybe they are trying to reinforce that Tesla's are only for rich people.

Okay, that's a jab, as I usually try to argue the opposite, but if pulling the lower priced cars is really what happened, that does sting quite a bit. Remember when the S was supposed to be the car that would be half the price of the $90,000 Roadster? Now it's starting to look like even with a $65K budget, I might not be able to buy a 4 year old used one.
 
I'm sure a few CPOs are being used as loaners, but initially, Elon's idea was to make the loaners the latest and greatest optioned cars, to tempt people to upgrade from their current car to the loaner. At one point, he even said, if you like the loaner better, you can just keep it and they'll work out a trade deal.

Now Elon has his own "reality distortion field", so maybe that's not how it played out in real life. But I don't think they are using many CPO cars as loaners unless they absolutely must do so and they have spare cars on the lot.
 
Maybe they are going to rework them, as in add an upgraded battery and AP hardware to boost the price. It can't be good for Tesla Motors or their owners when 60 KW and non-AP versions are selling in the 40s.

Adding AP hardware after the fact to a non-AP is not really possible. The expense of doing that FAR outstrips the additional revenue they might get from the upgrade, which really isn't much. And swapping out batteries is the same thing, cost is greater than the benefit.

I have a message into my CPO contact as TM to see what's going on. Not sure I'll get a reply, but anything is better than unrestrained speculation.

I'm sure this is a case of Occam's Razor -- (paraphrased): The simplest answer is likely the correct answer.
 
Changed browsers. I get 30 when the first filter is set to "Both new & pre-owned" but still just 10 for "Pre-owned" for any Model S... I guess we'll wait and see.

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...and EV-CPO shows 100 for all locations. Anyway...

Yeah, you may be on to something there -- no more than 10 CPOs (CPO only,not incl Inventory) per location. Strange. This is how they had it set up very early on, a very tight selection of cars from which to choose. Then after a few months, they started adding more and more cars to the Preowned site, as well as many Inventory cars.

Maybe they're trying to discourage use of EV-CPO by making the selections on their site easier to display and analyze only a few select cars at a time!

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And the answer is...... Tesla decided they don't want to sell their loaner cars. Boom! That's the official answer.

Are you just saying this, or do you have a source? There are still many Inventory cars for sale and all the cars removed two days ago were all CPOs, not loaners.
 
The simplest answer being they sold off the lower end of their CPO inventory en masse to a wholesaler?

It seems interesting that they got rid of their entire inventory with low VIN numbers below 20,000-something.

Because the older inventory takes longer to shift, and is lower margin.
- dump older cars without CPO warranty.
- maintain minimum CPO price
- get quick cash
- push value seekers to Model 3.
- make space for Model S trade-ins for Model X.
 
Yeah, you may be on to something there -- no more than 10 CPOs (CPO only,not incl Inventory) per location. Strange. This is how they had it set up very early on, a very tight selection of cars from which to choose. Then after a few months, they started adding more and more cars to the Preowned site, as well as many Inventory cars.

Maybe they're trying to discourage use of EV-CPO by making the selections on their site easier to display and analyze only a few select cars at a time!

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Are you just saying this, or do you have a source? There are still many Inventory cars for sale and all the cars removed two days ago were all CPOs, not loaners.

that is what was told to me from an insider.
 
Well, if they don't come back, it's hitting me pretty hard right now. All my life I've wanted a sexy high performance car. I had one in 1999 and had to give it up after only 1 year due to unforeseen life events. Then in 2011, I finally was able to buy myself a dream car, a 2011 Mustang GT. But in 2012, the EV revolution kicked off. It was no longer about just a car I wanted, it was about trying to support a better future for all mankind. So I traded in the Mustang in 2012 for a Chevrolet Volt in an attempt to join the revolution, but it wasn't exactly sexy or high performance. To make matters worse, my fixed work situation over the years that I have owned the Volt have had me driving half way across the state on a regular basis to a town with no accessible EV charging stations, so the Volt which is supposed to be a 95% electric I'm driving almost entirely on gas.

I tolerated that for years as I planned my life around building a budget for a Tesla, but it's really starting to grate on my nerves now. Then come late January this year, I come across a CPO car that is almost a perfect match for what we want that fits my new budget, but my budget relies on obtaining trade in value on the Volt, which I haven't been able to get. I hit a snag because places like CarMax apparently don't want Volts, so now I have to wait to either sell it private party or save up even more money. As I'm in the process of doing this, the CPO inventory has disappeared to where there is now nothing that matches my preferences.

As big of a fan as I am for Tesla and the EV revolution, I've had a really hard time not losing my hope and just giving up on it entirely. I try so hard to make it work and it never does. I'm tempted to just go buy a Mustang GT as I could do that tomorrow and probably find one on the lot I could take home the same day. I already know I love Mustang GTs (the 2011+ ones with the new 5.0, which is really a phenomenal engine for an ICE), but I fear in doing so some part of my soul may be lost.

But how much longer should I wait? I'm over 40 now and I feel age and time slowly stalking me. It's the one material dream of my life, so elusive...
 
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