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Comment by secabeen | Hacker News Reader

Another sign of the challenges of the dealer system. Ford took reservations, but then depends on dealers to close the sale, and they can increase the price.

For all their faults, Tesla held to their original pricing on S, X, and 3 for early reservations, even giving them free upgrades when the production model had higher specs than the original announcements. More recently, Tesla has hit some reservation holders with modest price increases, but not at over 50% of the base price of the vehicle like we're seeing here.

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Well, except for the LR reservation holders who were lead on and on that their vehicles were "about to enter production"... only to find it canceled, their place in the system lost, and Tesla barely able to say sorry, let alone offer an alternative.

> More recently, Tesla has hit some reservation holders with modest price increases, but not at over 50% of the base price of the vehicle like we're seeing here.

You mean _three_ price increases in 2021 alone that have bumped some Model 3 prices by about 30%? I'm not sure how "modest" an increase that is.

I agree that Tesla isn’t immune to the same mechanics of supply and demand that make dealerships do these markups, but I think it’s important to note that Tesla honors the price of the car from the time you placed the order. I ordered a Model 3 in October and the price of the car has increased since I placed that order, but I’ll still be paying the original price when I take delivery. I see that as a positive over what this article is saying, which is that the dealership hit reservation holders with a sudden markup, which probably wouldn’t have happened without the dealership as a middleman between Ford and the buyers.

Tesla actually does even better than that: if the price increases, you keep the one you ordered at, but if it decreases, they give you the lower one.

Those price increases didn't affect the reservation holders that the person you are replying to was talking about.

> Tesla held to their original pricing on S, X, and 3 for early reservations,

That’s some serious rewriting of history, at least for Model 3. Musk announced Model 3 at $35K price, took reservation money, and later announced that it will be a $45K Model 3 (or was it higher?). The $35K Model 3 came much much later, after the Fed credit had ended, and I believe was only there for a short time (I stopped checking after the above bait and switch).

As the owner of the cheapest Tesla ever sold in the US, let me tell you my story. I placed a day 2 reservation for the $35,000 Tesla. It took over two years, but the final price I paid excluding destination was $36500 and I was eligible for the tax credit at 50% off (3500).

I can’t speak to Ford, but last year we order a Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrid direct from Chrysler, shipped to the dealer for pickup and we had no issues with dealership upsell. It was exactly what it said we were getting. We love it too. Probably put gas in every 2-3 months if we don’t go out of town.

Do you like the vehicle? We have a Town and Country and while I’m not a fan of the minivan life it’s just so damn practical with kids. The Pacifica seems more car like than our Town and Country (seems like it sits lower, maybe handles better). Looking into options, we use the Model 3 almost all the time but sometimes you need the extra luggage space or just ability to sit a little further away (separate the kids).

We love it. Have a 2020 and the plugin hybrid approach is similar to the Chevy Volt where the first 35 miles you drive everyday is all electric. For us, even driving into the next town everyday, that covers us.

The vehicle is great. Bells and whistles are solid. Really the only downside to it is that the battery sits in the space where you would have been able to fold down the middle row of seats. Instead, if you need to get the middle seats out of the way, you have to remove them and they are a little heavier than I expected.

Still though, the practicality can't be beat. When you fold down the back and remove the middle seats it's almost like having a covered pickup truck with as much as you can fit in there.

Thanks for the insight. To be honest I have almost never fully folded down the middle seats, since you have to move the front seats up, move the floor mats and then fold them in.

I give VW a lot of credit here, they somehow got dealers to hold the line on the ID.4. It was a long wait but a good delivery and purchase experience.

No they did not. I recently tried to buy an id4 and was told by the dealer that there was a 5k markup from sticker price and no reservation system. They have a list of people they will call when a car gets to the dealership and the first to shore up in person will get it.

I just heard a story from a local guy who ordered a custom build Porsche, put down a sizeable deposit, waited six months, and then got the call that it was in at the dealership. When he went down there the next day to do the paperwork, they told him somebody that morning made them a cash offer and so they sold the car out from under him.

Damn, that's a way to lose a customer for life. I'd be fuming if I were that customer.

The guy told me this story as a way of warning me against ordered a car from this particular dealer. Problem is, the other Porsche dealer in the area I have heard different but just as terrible stories about. One was that they are selling cars as new that had already been put "in service" months ago, so if you bought from them without checking, you wouldn't get your full warranty period.

I've had plenty of terrible experiences with pretty much all local dealers I've dealt with, Audi, BMW, Ford, VW... dealers can get away with being terrible because they all are and there's nowhere to go.

Each state has a office that deals with and licenses dealerships. If he put down a deposit and had paperwork, it might be worth it to look them up. They can basically close down a dealership at will.

Too bad, totally different from my experience. I ordered and configured my car in the first early-adopter wave via the web form though so perhaps those were a better experience.

Or I just got lucky.

Each dealership and even sales person is different. Even if VW wanted to do something they couldn’t.

> Ford took reservations

iirc, for a Mach-E reservation, Ford made you choose a local dealer as part of the process.

Anyone know how that played out? Were you locked into that dealer, and could they adjust the price?

The Mach-E $500 was refundable, like with Tesla. I'm reading that the Lightning deposit is $100, refundable. So the $5000 must be the step beyond that.

Yes you were locked in and yes they could adjust the price. I got around that by going through a dealer in the Costco network. I figured the full force of Costco would be enough to prevent shenanigans and it worked.

I tried the Costco dealer thing once and there were still shenanigans, so nothing is guaranteed.

Hopefully you reached out to Costco, they'll either get it fixed or kick the dealer out of their network. They can't fix what they don't know about.

You're right that I should have talked to Costco about it. Unfortunately, I didn't have the patience for it at the time, I just bought the same car somewhere else.

The issue is that if Tesla does it, you have no recourse.

If a random dealership does this to me, I walk down the street to the other dealership and buy a car from them.

That's the theory. The reality is that if there is actually multiple dealers in your region, they're probably all owned by the same group.

There's four Ford dealerships within reasonable distance of me, they're all the same company.

There literally four Ford dealerships between my house and my sister's house 20 minutes away, different companies all together.

What happens if there isn’t another dealer down the street, or if every dealer is marking up the price?

Don't buy it.

Then in this case, you lose your deposit and they sell it to someone else for the same markup you declined.

The deposit is refundable

> An additional non-refundable US$5,000 deposit is apparently also required to place an order for the electric pickup truck.

Isn't the deposit with Ford directly rather than a particular dealer?

As I understand it, you pay the deposit to Ford first then you work with a dealer to finalize the sale. If all dealers are marking them up (they are) then your choice is to lose the deposit or pay a markup.

Edit: Actually it looks like the Ford deposit was $100 and refundable. This must be a separate dealer deposit. I am not sure if it comes before or after price agreement. Dealers are sketchy as hell so could be either.

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