Who reserved a Tesla Model 3?

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GadgetGav

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Joined
Dec 24, 2014
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How many current EV owners were among the 115,000 who put down $1,000 yesterday to reserve a spot in line to get a Model 3 I wonder.
From the short reveal presentation the specs are impressive for a $35,000 car. We'll see if the competition is able to match or better it by the end of 2017.
 
GadgetGav said:
How many current EV owners were among the 115,000 who put down $1,000 yesterday to reserve a spot in line to get a Model 3 I wonder.
From the short reveal presentation the specs are impressive for a $35,000 car. We'll see if the competition is able to match or better it by the end of 2017.
I heard the line is 4 days long at the local dealer.
 
I reserved one in-person. There's lots of time for everyone else to catch up, but as of today, the 200+mi range, 0-60 <6s, and $35k is a line in the sand no one else is openly standing by, so I don't see the harm in putting a refundable deposit to place myself closer to the front of the line.

Regarding the in-person lines... The lines at the CA-BayArea dealerships were ~300 long at 9am, and taking about 2+ hours to get through. By 11am, it was half as long, and by 1pm, it was half again, and by 2pm, it was ~20 people and a 10-minute wait. They had iPads to scan your ID and credit card, and you had to input e-mail/phone, and that was it.

If my 2016 SE e-Golf had a 200 mile, or even a 150 mile range, I probably would have passed on the Model 3.
 
sodakar said:
I reserved one in-person. There's lots of time for everyone else to catch up, but as of today, the 200+mi range, 0-60 <6s, and $35k is a line in the sand no one else is openly standing by, so I don't see the harm in putting a refundable deposit to place myself closer to the front of the line. [...]

If my 2016 SE e-Golf had a 200 mile, or even a 150 mile range, I probably would have passed on the Model 3.

I reserved one online after the reveal event, and am waiting to take delivery of an X in about a month. Will sell the Honda Oddysee if X turns out to be as great as I think despite less seats (6 instead of 8) and less storage room, and will replace the 2015 eGolf with the 3 in 2018 if it then still all makes sense... as you said fully refundable :)

Exciting to see the electric revolution catching on, can't wait for the streets with no smelly cars being normal... Funny enough even at VW the guy who took the car in for the firmware upgrade did not get it fully, he said he sold 1-2 a month a while ago, and 'it accelerates pretty well for an electric car' which means he doesn't know that electric cars always win accelerating against the gas cars, at least off the line :) He was shocked when I told him that electric is the better car and after having driven one for a year I would never go back to a gas car, that it would be like replacing my iPhone with a landline, not gonna happen.
 
forbin404 said:
GadgetGav said:
How many current EV owners were among the 115,000 who put down $1,000 yesterday to reserve a spot in line to get a Model 3 I wonder.
From the short reveal presentation the specs are impressive for a $35,000 car. We'll see if the competition is able to match or better it by the end of 2017.
I heard the line is 4 days long at the local dealer.

Note for americans the cost of the base model after incentives but before taxes may be $25,000 (CA) or even less in colorado, not bad for a 230 mile range car that can be optioned up into longer range and faster acceleration and whatever else they have up their sleeve and are not telling us yet.
 
Not me, for a couple of reasons:

1. I would like my next car to be a PHEV, not a pure electric, as I would like to go down to one car, and I don't want to rely on a charging network (including Tesla's) just to be able to take a long road trip. Too many selfish people out there hogging charging stations, and that's only going to get worse as EVs and PHEVs become more popular. A PHEV of 20 mile EV-only range still meets 90% of my driving requirements.

2. I'm not too crazy about the interior, especially the large touch screen in the center of the dash.
 
I preordered 2 just for the hell of it at the Tesla showroom in Corte Madera, CA around noon on March 31. Took over 2 hours for the line to die down. There must have been 500 people in line when I showed up at 10am. Never seen anything like it. Line snaked through the mall and around to the back of Macy's. Never thought I'd see so many people excited for an EV.

It would be my fourth EV if I actually can wait that long. 2013 Honda Fit EV, 2014 RAV4 EV, and 2015 E-golf. Granted the E-golf replaced the RAV4 EV after it was totaled. I actually don't care much for the design they unveiled last night. Looks so similar to the Model X, which to me just looks like it was designed to appeal to women. Just not a fan of the bulbous shapes and curves. Love the Model S design, so I'm more than a little bummed. However, some of the real world photos I saw today were a little more flattering. But honestly I still would rather have a RAV4 EV with the innards of the Model 3. For some reason, the RAV4 EV is still my favorite design. Probably because test driving one at a plug-in event was what got me into EV's in the first place back in 2012. First love and all that.
 
My wife and I reserved two about at about 10:15am on 3/31. We plan on selling our Model S and replacing the E-golf with them.

As of 9am on 4/2, Tesla had 232,000 reservations. I'm ecstatic that the EV revolution is finally happening. This will certainly wake up other manufacturers R&D and get more EVs on the road. Go Elon!

Patrick
 
Already have a TDI that's 850 miles capable or more between refills, and the e-Golf for around town. All of them are paid for. Call me a Luddite. I agree with RonDawg, the lines at the Tesla chargers on longer trips are going to get a lot longer with eHawgs wanting to charge for free. Free Charging creates a lot of entitled Freeloaders waiting for anything free.
 
I had to skim the thread a couple times looking for the mention that Harley's "eHawgs" were going to be Tesla compatible until I realized what he was referencing :D
 
I just realized, I didn't say in the OP but I put down the $1000 to get in the line. Not too happy that the line isn't first come, first served because they're going to give priority to current Tesla owners (OK, I suppose) and west coast delivery first, but better to be somewhere in that line than not. The west coast thing seems too much though. They already have nationwide sales, distribution and service, so there's no technical reason why they can't do first come, first served across the country. I'm sure CA alone will soak up a big chunk of the first year's production leaving us east coasters out in the cold.
I was encouraged by how advanced the car seems to be in development. They were giving rides in fully functional dual-motor ones after the event. Maybe it was a hacked-together prototype on a cut-down S floor chassis, but it didn't seem like it. Having functional cars now makes me more confident that they'll be able to be in production by "late 2017", given that they've been terrible at hitting production deadlines up to this point (you still can't configure a model X on the website for instance).

The "look we don't need a grille" styling was a bit in-your-face for my liking, but we should start getting used to cars that don't need vents in the front I suppose. I think that slab front looks better in darker colors, so maybe the dark blue or black would look good in person.

As with current Teslas, the thing I like least seems to be their signature feature - the big touch screen. I still think it's easier and safer to have physical controls for some things, like temperature and air distribution, but Tesla obviously feels differently. In the demo drive I saw video of, the Tesla employee driver was pointing out that with the landscape 15in screen in the model 3 they can put information in the top left corner that's in the driver's peripheral vision, so it seems they're putting the speedo there and doing away with any instrument binnacle straight ahead. Maybe there will be HUD options when it launches. I think that will take some getting used to but I think it's a price I'd be willing to pay for the other aspects of the car.

I did notice that Musk said it would have Supercharger hardware built in, but did not say that it would have free access to the Supercharger network. Maybe by late 2017 none of the network will be free, or maybe the $35, 000 car will have to pay by the hour when using it. I'd be OK with that as I don't do a lot of road trips and I'd rather pay less up front and pay for charging as needed.
 
I reserved one also. I'm assuming that there will be no Federal rebates by the time I get mine. As I understand, those rebates are limited to the first 200,000 EVs. Given that I'm probably around the 200,000th person to reserve a Model 3, I can't imagine rebates will still be available.
 
Yeah, I'm not counting on rebates. Is it 200,000 units total from a manufacturer or by model? If there's 200,000 for the model 3, I might be lucky, but I'm not counting on it. For a $35,000 car that's not so bad, although Musk said that based on common options from the other models, he expects the average selling price of the model 3 to be close to $42,000...
 
200,000 units delivered in the US (not world-wide) triggers the phaseout for a particular manufacturer.

The 2 quarters after the 200,000 limit is still full rebate, no limit on cars. Then 1 quarter of 1/2 rebate, no limit on cars, then 1 quarter of 1/4 rebate, no limit on cars.

So if Tesla rearranges production so that it hits the USA 200,000 limit on day 1 of the quarter, then that will be almost 3 full quarters of unlimited deliveries that qualify for the full credit.
 
Unbeliever said:
200,000 units delivered in the US (not world-wide) triggers the phaseout for a particular manufacturer.

The 2 quarters after the 200,000 limit is still full rebate, no limit on cars. Then 1 quarter of 1/2 rebate, no limit on cars, then 1 quarter of 1/4 rebate, no limit on cars.

So if Tesla rearranges production so that it hits the USA 200,000 limit on day 1 of the quarter, then that will be almost 3 full quarters of unlimited deliveries that qualify for the full credit.
Good to know, thanks.
 
Unbeliever said:
200,000 units delivered in the US (not world-wide) triggers the phaseout for a particular manufacturer.

The 2 quarters after the 200,000 limit is still full rebate, no limit on cars. Then 1 quarter of 1/2 rebate, no limit on cars, then 1 quarter of 1/4 rebate, no limit on cars.

So if Tesla rearranges production so that it hits the USA 200,000 limit on day 1 of the quarter, then that will be almost 3 full quarters of unlimited deliveries that qualify for the full credit.
Actually, it is as follows:
Full tax credit is available for one full quarter after the 200,000 is reached. For example, if Tesla's limit is reached in February 2018, cars delivered on or after July 1 will get half of the tax credit.
Half tax credit is in force for 2 quarters, ie. the rest of 2018.
One quarter tax credit is in force for 2 quarters, ie. the first half of 2019.
No credit for cars delivered on or after July 1, 2019 in this example.
 
Musk said on Twitter that they had 276,000 reservations by the end of Saturday. Actually he called them "orders" but I wouldn't class them as that yet.
He also just posted that the base will be RWD with dual motor AWD as an option, but we basically knew this from the rides they were giving journos at the event.
 
Gadgetgzv said:
[...] and west coast delivery first [...].

For United States region, the west coast first is just for the very initial cars that tend to have issues and need to come back to the factory a few times to get right, like we saw for the Model X between december and february, a lot of them were hand made and needed adjusting and replacing parts. March is when the real production quality cars came off the line.

I expect model 3 Volume production quality cars will not be west coast first, just the initial trouble shooter batches.
 
Skryll said:
I expect model 3 Volume production quality cars will not be west coast first, just the initial trouble shooter batches.
I was getting that directly from official Tesla information, not just a hunch...
https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/reserving-model-3/?utm_campaign=Blog_Model3_032116
 
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