Ditching Gas - My Personal Story Continues

The Long, OK, Not So Long Wait
After committing in late February, we were told to expect delivery in March or April. Wow, that was shocking and again a little concerning. With 18,000+ people on the US reservation list and a goal of producing 500 cars a week, we asked ourselves what happened? Could Tesla, led by a man who builds rocket ships, have ramped production well beyond their expectations or could that many people have canceled? If so, was Tesla a viable company? Fear brewed.

The reality turns out to be less dramatic and more logistical. Tesla has a goal of becoming profitable by the end of the quarter, March 31st, 2013. To do so, it needed to produce and deliver as many Model S’s as possible by then. The easiest way to do this was to produce the Model S with the most standard configurations first. Since we picked the 85kwh battery, active air suspension, and a standard/popular color we were bumped up before smaller battery and standard suspension configurations.

While waiting, the smart phone app appeared in Google Play (or the App Store for those drinking the Apple Juice). I downloaded the app and entered my credentials. The app booted, but then coldly informed me that there was no car associated with this account. Fair enough, but I checked back every day assuming that once it associated the app with a car my car was on its way across the country from the California plant. I assumed the transport would take about a week and therefore it would be the perfect warning bell to arrange my car loan and the selling of my Z4.

To my surprise, I woke up on Friday March 15th, opened the app to a different presentation. No longer did it stall at login. Instead, in passed the initial screen and conveyed that my car was in existence, but did not have remote access. I called Tesla with great joy and confirmed indeed my car was in shipment and it should arrive by March 21st and provided me with my VIN. In theory this meant I could pick it up March 22nd or have it delivered shortly after. I called my insurance company and they informed me my insurance would only increase a few hundred dollars a year. I started the loan process with Pen Fed, which given my credit history I assumed would be a slam dunk. I walked around on cloud nine all day until I got a surprise call at 6:00 PM from Tesla asking if I could pick my car up on Monday. What? How did this happen? Tesla’s delivery communication is notoriously sporadic, but this one even took me for a spin. “Sure,” was my immediate response, but the logistics were daunting. I need to sell my car, finish the loan, and get my insurance squared away.

Insurance was easy. A quick call to State Farm took care of that. I scheduled the swapping of my cars on my policy for Monday and planned to pick up the insurance cards on the way to get the car. The selling of my car, while I could have done privately for more money, was uncomfortable to me. Too many scams on Craig’s List and the thought of other people ripping around the neighborhood test driving my car didn’t sit well with me. I figured I would use AutoNation, the partner of Tesla, and just wholesale it. She was a well-used old lady and showed it. They offered 6K pending inspection, but couldn’t tell me if they could schedule an inspection by Monday. Instead, I went you webuyanycar.com and sold it there. The experience wasn’t great. They imply a price online, which started at $6,800. However, their assessment of fair value isn’t necessarily what is obvious from their site. They take off for any little scratch or ding. Now in a car that is a few years old, that’s certainly fair. However, a ten year old car with 117,000 miles cannot expect to be in showroom condition. That said there were some real problems they deducted for and I had no issue with that. Overall, I decided to go forward with them as I didn’t want to delay the purchase of our Model S.

The real issue turned out to be getting the loan paperwork processed quickly. I used Penn Fed and was conditionally approved by midday on Saturday. The problem became getting my sales agreement and income verification through their antiquated system. I was home without a fax and their email rejected any file over 1 MB. After breaking the file into chunks and sending it, I got an email indicating the files were received. I called on Sunday and they said I would have to wait until Monday to receive final confirmation. Certainly fair enough. However, when I called on Monday I got the royal runaround. Every time I called back I started over with the person on the phone telling me my documents weren’t received yet. Finally, at 1:00 PM on my way to get my insurance cards and my Model S a kind gentleman was willing to walk over and verify my paperwork. “Check is in the mail,” I was told.

The story continues ...