It's funny because they still haven't contacted me, nor did they contact anyone else I know who placed the reservation. Worked out fine for me, I've been mostly in Japan, and now that I'll be back in Seattle I'm planning to contact them and really curious what they say.
Everyone else got their car eventually but had to call and check multiple times. To each person they apologized and said it must be an oversight.
The whole thing leaves a really bad impression of the company. I wonder how they account for the money on their books over the past four years.
Have to keep "assets = liabilities + equity" balanced!
Here in nl the law is pretty strict about downpayments, if you accept a downpayment you have to keep the item in reserve for that particular customer. That's easy enough to check with a vehicle (they have a VIN after all).
At a minimum you should get some compensation for financing them to the tune of $5K over a longer period of time.
I'd bet that if Tesla took reservations in NL at all that they complied with the local law. For example, in the US it doesn't turn into a firm order until you go through the final feature pick right before production. Before that either side can cancel for any reason. That might make it not a downpayment in NL.
It wouldn't surprise me if this becomes the norm in any 'place in line' list with high value items. Companies would love the ability to offer the chance to consumers to put a down payment for a place in line while at the same time removing any liability in case they have to break that agreement.
I'm baffled at why anyone would think it should be otherwise. Guaranteeing a strict order would be essentially impossible, and it would mean that a problem with a single unit would delay the entire group of people behind it.
Since this flexibility goes both ways (you can cancel at any time for any reason and get a refund), I don't see what's so weird or upsetting about this.
But that said - there's been 70Ds been showing up for a while, so I suspect it was just just done for the initial rush of orders.
Anyone ordering this has to be careful what they say online about Tesla using their real name. Tesla has historically gone after critics pretty heavily (both professionals, and random members of the public).
In particular if it is delayed and you call them out, expect to be removed.
They were acting as a private individual who turned up at a Tesla event, it started late, they complained and got banned.
Their job happens to be venture capitalist but they weren't acting in that capacity. The vehicle was private purchase for private use, and they complained on a personal twitter account.
Do you have a source on that? Considering how many BMW dealerships there are I am highly skeptical.
It is just a company (and a CEO) that doesn't like criticism and doesn't handle it at all well. They overreact and you don't want to be on the receiving end of that.
And let's talk about the specific case: Tesla started an event either 1.5 hours late or 1 hour late (depending on who you believe), didn't apologise, and then when someone criticizes them for it the CEO cancelled their pre-order and "banned" them from owning a Tesla.
All of the Tesla fans love to blame all of this stuff on everyone else (the person who got banned, Top Gear, NYT, etc) but ultimately the point still stands that Tesla actively goes after people who offend them. My only point was that it could happen to YOU or ME if we're not careful.
Yes, and the rebuttal, and the follow up. Have you?
> They flat out lied about a ton of things(which is why Tesla added logging after the TopGear incident).
I suggest you go back and look at it. It isn't as black and white as you seem to believe. Tesla muddied the water, in particular as few read the rebuttal or follow up, but ultimately the original article is still an interesting look at what owning a Tesla was like in 2013.
Plus the Top Gear thing was OBVIOUSLY comical. Since Top Gear is a comedy show after all. Tesla just had an incredibly thin skin about it or didn't understand what Top Gear was, the segment was entirely predictable.
According to the NYT themselves they were imprecise and made mistakes[1]. Considering that I don't know why a flawed review from 2013 would be a good indicator of anything.
[1] http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/problems-wi...
It is the classical "let me nitpit tiny details and then claim your entire point is wrong" arguing technique. Go look at the original NYT article, then read this rebuttal, and tell me that most of the major complaints in the NYT article don't stand.
There's a huge difference between 60,70 and 80 mph when it comes to efficiency. I can drop from 60-70 and see a 30% increase in my range due to v^2.
This is not obvious to a casual viewer of the show. I've watched a few episodes from time to time and it seemed like a show about reviewing cars to me.
Considering Top Gear[1] scripted it out to make the car seem shitty why would you be surprised that they tried to sue?
> had a massive battle with the New York Times, because the NYT instead of publishing a puff piece published an article critical of Tesla's Model S.
Um, yeah, the review wasn't good from a review-standing-on-its-own standpoint. There was much back and forth but ultimately the review was inaccurate / imprecise in many areas[2].
> All of the Tesla fans love to blame all of this stuff on everyone else (the person who got banned, Top Gear, NYT, etc) but ultimately the point still stands that Tesla actively goes after people who offend them. My only point was that it could happen to YOU or ME if we're not careful.
Yup, fair enough. But also keep in mind that, as an owner of a company, you have the right to "fire the customer". After working in retail there were plenty of times when a customer, even rightly so, criticized things you do but ultimately you can't just keep them around because they're disrupting others (one reason among many, many reasons). I'm not sure if there was ever more to the story than was published or not (I've seen plenty of people tell a completely different story after leaving our store to other people). It didn't seem like a nice thing to do but I also don't care that much that Musk did it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear_controversies#Tesla_R...
[2] http://www.poynter.org/2013/elon-musk-on-new-york-times-tesl...
Top Gear is a scripted comedy show. Tesla thought (and you seem to think) that Top Gear is a serious car review program, it hasn't been that for at least twenty years.
Of course Top Gear are going to make a joke about an electric car running out of juice, that's the obvious go to joke to make. You cannot sue someone because you don't find them funny.
It just comes across as petty or out of touch on Tesla's part.
> Um, yeah, the review wasn't good from a review-standing-on-its-own standpoint. There was much back and forth but ultimately the review was inaccurate / imprecise in many areas[2].
There was a lot of back and forth, follow up articles, a rebuttal, a Tesla piece. But even after all of that a lot of the issues still remain. The way Tesla reacted to the article was completely over the top however, that was more the issue, they could have issued a rebuttal but instead they went nuclear right out of the gate.
> It didn't seem like a nice thing to do but I also don't care that much that Musk did it.
I don't care either, I just don't like what it represents. Tesla does something wrong (which even they admit they did), someone criticizes them, and they're banned from buying a Tesla.
You can argue there is more to the story, but Musk/Tesla never said there was and the blogger directly said there wasn't. They just said they got a call notifying them to the ban/cancellation out of the blue. Boom, done. Musk hasn't gone on record saying he was rude on the call, or whatever, people just make that up to justify why Tesla/Musk is right.
Again, as far as I know that happened exactly once. Are there more examples, or not?
That has happened more than once, yes.
First off, they're not a public figure, they were privately buying a Tesla vehicle for private use and posted on a personal Twitter account.
Secondly, that's a really weak line. Why is there even one rule for mistreating "public figures" and another line for everyone else? Why do you assume someone with less social power will be treated better?
Honestly all you just did was admit that Tesla was in the wrong. Claiming they are allowed to act badly because "public figure something something" is nonsensical.
It's pretty obvious from the conversation here that you don't really care about Tesla canceling reservations, you just have an axe to grind, and saw the cancelled reservation as a wedge you could use to insert yourself into the conversation. You posted under the guise of warning people not to be critical in public, but you don't care about that, you just want to point out Tesla's bad behavior towards the New York Times and Top Gear.
Note: I'm not defending Tesla's behavior towards NYT and Top Gear. I just don't see any justification for your claim that it's "more likely" you'll lose your spot because of public criticism on Twitter, and that you should "expect to be removed" if you complain about delays.
I do. They have previously done exactly that. That's my only point, Tesla has a history of attacking critics including cancelling pre-orders.
My only "axe to grind" is for Tesla to stop attacking critics and to instead go after their argument. If Tesla disagrees with a negative review/experience, that's fine, but don't try to punish people for raising issues.
I get your overall point, I just think you're going too far with it and being rather disingenuous when you warn people that their reservations will be cancelled if they complain.
Would genuinely love to hear about companies that don't require this deposit.
No rental car reservations in the US require a deposit while reserving a car.
If you want a Model 3 the $1000 deposit is the fastest way to accomplish that goal.
Existing customers will get priority. I have to say, I did lol when reading that but it makes sense to give a little goodie to your existing customers.
Therefore, the fastest way to buy a Model S is to live in the US, immigrating as necessary, buy a Model S and order the most expensive Model 3 you can configure ;)
But in 95% of cases, it works out such that you have a slow but working internet connection. So even though you are not guaranteed a spot, chances are you will still get it sooner than someone who didn't reserve at all.