Tesla owners protest over drastic price cuts

https://electrek.co/2019/03/04/tesla-owners-protest-price-cuts/

by throwaway2016a • 7 years ago

40 81 7 years ago

cbm-vic-20• 7 years ago

It must suck when your status symbol is now obtainable by the peasantry.

magduf3• 7 years ago

It's especially bad since Tesla's whole goal was to make EVs more accessible, mainly by starting at the top-end and working downwards. They were never trying to create some exclusive luxury brand not meant for plebs.

natch4• 7 years ago

“Especially bad”? It’s not bad if more people can buy them. It’s good.

itg• 7 years ago

Did you read the article or are you going by the headline? They are upset because some of these buyers got their vehicles days before the price cut.

ticmasta• 7 years ago

It's like a an airline ticket. You're happy to have one for the price you paid, but man, if you find out the person beside you paid $20 less, your fury knows no bounds!

antris• 7 years ago

So what? You buy something if you feel it's worth the price. They bought it for the price, regardless what the price is after.

lm284692• 7 years ago

"He was alive and fine two minutes before he died"

There is always a before/after an event. This argument doesn't hold anywhere outside of a schoolyard.

Let's say they extended the price change to a 2 weeks period, the people who bought it at 15 days will complain just the same.

raisedbyninjas• 7 years ago

I didn't see this sentiment in the article. Buyers were angry that they paid an extra $30k buying the day before the announcement. Is Tesla offering any sort of price protection for recent purchases?

plopz• 7 years ago

I think there is a 7 day return policy?

makerofspoons• 7 years ago

The idea of buying a car as an investment that should retain value is totally alien to me. The thing starts to lose value as soon as you drive it off the lot. By the time you're done with it the car will be worth a couple hundred to a few thousand bucks. You agreed to buy at the listed price, and that's on you.

berbec2• 7 years ago

When your back two tires hit the road outside of the dealership, the car is instantly worth 20% less.

Cars don't appreciate unless they fall under the classics category, and the time frame involved is decades. Who's going to hang on to a car for 60 years in case its the next 57 Chevy?

tudelo• 7 years ago

There are cars newer than 60 years old that appreciate :). Of course, they do not usually appreciate past retail, but they appreciate relative to the lowest historical cost.

rootusrootus5• 7 years ago

Aside from really terrible models and premium/luxury cars (and some edge cases like EVs), a new car should not depreciate 20% in the entire first year, much less the moment it rolls off the lot.

dfee• 7 years ago

I did buy a brand new diesel Jetta in 2016 that appreciated past retail in value when the company was forced to do buybacks :)

Someone12343• 7 years ago

When your back two tires hit the road outside of the dealership, the car is instantly worth 20% less.

No longer the case. After cash for clunkers, the used market is much more expensive than it used to be. If you're looking at reliable brands like Toyota/Honda a two-three year old (ex-lease?) model isn't even 20% off, and that has 15-20K miles on it.

There's a reason why so many people are buying new, the used market is strange/irrational for some brands. And new vehicle incentives/lower APR loans/safety features etc make it a hard call.

People should go check out a no-negotiation dealership (e.g. Carmax). You'll be surprised at current used prices compared to new.

scarejunba• 7 years ago

Is it possible to buy cars that are "almost new"?

shiftpgdn• 7 years ago

My last two cars I sold after a year of ownership for about 3% less than I paid. In the most recent case I sold the car for just $500 less than I purchased it for as a new car with 20,000 miles on it.

Go price out used cars that are a year or two old and then price out an invoice less holdback purchase on a new car.

gwbas1c• 7 years ago

My 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid appreciated when CA allowed it to drive in the carpool lane.

southphillyman• 7 years ago

A lot of modern supercars appreciate rapidly now days it seems. A a 3 yr old used LaFerrari will likely cost you triple the original price for instance

dagoat• 7 years ago

the time frame involved is decades

Usually decades. For example, some early 2000s Ford GTs have appreciated to a multiple of their original selling price

almost_usual4• 7 years ago

Cars depreciate extremely fast. Trucks retain their value a little longer. Definitely never an investment though.

https://www.businessinsider.com/cars-likely-keep-their-value...

legitster• 7 years ago

Depreciation should 100% be part of your equation when buying a car. Yes, you take a hit for buying new. But there's a huge difference in losing 30% of your value after 5 years vs 70%. The average consumer car has a depreciation curve upwards of 20 years. People buy Toyotas because they hold their value, and lease BMWs because they know they don't.

rootusrootus5• 7 years ago

FWIW, typical depreciation at five years is 45-55% (with 55% being an unpopular Chevy or FCA product, and 45% being a Toyota). 70% only happens to EVs (and in particular, compliance EVs), and sometimes it's far worse than that (looking at you, Fiat 500E).

foxyv• 7 years ago

What? They didn't believe Musk's claims about price reductions when they bought them? I mean it's been a long time coming but he built a space program for heaven's sake.

captainbland• 7 years ago

They bet on Tesla being the Apple of the road and bet wrong by the sounds of it.

anilshanbhag• 7 years ago

Thread on r/teslamotors about this: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/awvsz7/kelviny...

Two good comments there: 1) "huh... i guess outrage over a price drop falls under the category of "there's no such thing as bad press"" 2) "The news accounts on weibo posted the news in a negative tone. But the comments are mainly against who demand refund over price drop. So I would say it's now viral without much backlash"

Shivetya• 7 years ago

Considering how drastic the changes were overseas and built in demand Tesla not only garnered poor public response they gave up a lot of free money.

hindsight is 20/20, they should have walked it down to the lowest price points over the course of the year while broadcasting the fact that they expect to cut prices continuously.

This ain't to excuse some US customers but I am afraid far too many people here are merely looking for an excuse to be a victim so that they in turn feel important. Reddit is all over the place with pro and con comments. The sense of entitlement. that some people have is astounding.

ps: if you want to see entitlement approach ridiculous levels just check out the crying in the apple sub that 5gb free cloud is pathetic, shameful, and outrageous.

tlrobinson• 7 years ago

One of those markets is Taiwan, where the price of a Model S P100D was cut almost in half by Tesla’s latest price changes – resulting in about $100,000 in savings.

When people complain about $100 drop in price on a iPhone or whatever I don't have any sympathy, but 50% on a ~$200,000 car is... significant.

JumpCrisscross• 7 years ago

50% on a ~$200,000 car is... significant

It's a luxury car.

It's not an investment. It's not a necessity. The money that was "lost" was already spent on hedonistic value. (In any case, Teslas can be returned within a number of days of purchase. The individual who bought five days before the price drop is almost certainly within that window.)

freeopinion3• 7 years ago

If they bought it 5 days before the announcement, there is nothing to return. They just have to cancel their order.

Then re-order.

Then wait an extra month to take delivery.

lm284692• 7 years ago

That's the market, you can't buy premium cars, the epitome of consumerism and status symbolism, and ask for social justice when something happens.

We're not talking about medicine, food or other basic human needs here, we're talking about a car that costs 100 times the yearly minimum wage of some countries. Luxury isn't a right.

I'd like to see the same people reacting to a price increase, they'd probably be just as virulent on twitter, but boasting instead of complaining.

almost_usual4• 7 years ago

This isn’t Tesla’s fault. It’s the owners’ fault. When you purchase a Tesla you are making an extremely risky decision to purchase a vehicle coming from a brand new car company. The vehicle lifetime, maintenance, price, and service quality is all an experiment right now.

Call me boring but I’ll be sticking with my Toyota for a bit longer.

tomp3• 7 years ago

What does "new car company" and "vehicle lifetime, maintenance, service quality" have to do with price?

Btw, this isn't just Tesla, it's Elon Musk. SpaceX also lowered their prices, and forced all other competitors (old companies) to lower theirs as well!

almost_usual4• 7 years ago

What does "new car company" and "vehicle lifetime, maintenance, service quality" have to do with price?

What? What doesn’t it have to do with price? Why would anyone pay for a vehicle that had poor ratings for all of those things?

jfoster• 7 years ago

Can you explain what you mean about it being "extremely risky?" What's the worst that could happen, and how likely is that, even?

rootusrootus5• 7 years ago

It could turn out to be very unreliable and Tesla could go bankrupt well before the warranty expires.

michaelt• 7 years ago

Hypothetically?

Maybe you'll buy partly on the promise of features that haven't yet been delivered, and they either won't be delivered or won't be as good as you expected when they are. It might have fit-and-finish problems like cars used to in the 1980s, like a leaking sunroof. Perhaps quality standards will vary as production ramps up, so reports by journalists and early adopters will prove inaccurate. You might need customer service, and find it barely exists, Google-style. You might find Tesla's own mechanics can't get the parts to do repairs, because of supply chain problems. Maybe you read positive reports, but they were written by Tesla fans biased by their enthusiasm for the brand, or journalists biased by their access to free press cars. Perhaps you'll need a replacement part after owning the car several years, and you'll find replacement parts are no longer available. Maybe there will be some subtle software bug that will inconvenience you, but with trigger conditions rare enough Tesla will never prioritise finding and fixing the cause. Perhaps there will be some expensive part that wears out after X, when competing cars usually last for 2X.

As you'll appreciate, quantifying the chance of such problems is difficult.

tomp3• 7 years ago

I’ve been saying it for a while, Tesla’s pricing structure makes them look like amateurs.

Nice little passive aggressive completely unargumented quip here...

As a consumer and a free (but fair) market proponent, I want "amateur" pricing structures.

I don't have a lot of experience buying cars, but I recently needed some FX conversions. Compare TransferWise and OFX.

TransferWise offers transparent pricing, they do the conversion at mid market rate and add a bit of fees on top (the bigger the transaction, the lower fees are in percentage terms).

OFX advertises "no fees" but they offer wider bid/ask spread than the market does, meaning that they do charge fees, but they're hidden in the price you're being offered. In addition, they're happy to improve the price if you call them out on this!

TransferWise are amateurs telling me "we offer a service". OFX are "professionals" who are communicating "we're trying to exploit amateurs with an opaque pricing structure that tries to disguise how much our customers are overpaying".

I know which one I'll be using!

Edit: a simple way to see how much you're actually paying, is to try a two-way transfer - e.g. first ask the service to give you the price for 1000 GB (say 1,160.29 EUR), then transfer that amount back to GBP (I get 992.78 GBP). Assuming symmetry, the fee for a one-way transfer then is (1000 - 992.78)/2=3.61 GBP or 0.361%.

ltcoleman• 7 years ago

I can empathize with the anger over a price reduction when you just bought a product. I bought a truck and a month later, the dealership had an additional 5k in rebates. Same happens when you buy an expensive tv, and a couple months later, the price drops by 1-2k. Technology products are constantly becoming cheaper through innovation and to satisfy supply/demand economics.. why is a tesla any different?

If you bought a tesla for resale value, you are doing it wrong. Buying a tesla helps the environment, furthers innovation, and provides a status symbol.

benj1113• 7 years ago

Why?

It isn't as if the $35k model 3 is a surprise.

If you're willing to wait, tech things tend to get cheaper over time, should I be annoyed that had I waited instead of getting a 486 with 8mb ram, I could have got something orders of magnitude faster, for an order of magnitude less?

These people for what ever reason didn't want to wait, they paid more, in return they got some extra months/years of use of a more exclusive machine.

That's the early adopter deal.

Plus as you say, if you bought a tesla for resale value, you are doing it wrong.

natch4• 7 years ago

Many owners are not upset because they understand that with any tech product, prices drop over time. I would venture to say most owners, but over time the clue level will be diluted so it’s hard to say.

pbhjpbhj3• 7 years ago

Do people sell insurance against "buyers remorse"?

rootusrootus5• 7 years ago

Many companies do, it's called a price match guarantee. If this causes enough bad press I wouldn't be shocked if Tesla does it.

pbhjpbhj3• 7 years ago

I've seen "price match" from the actual seller, but not third parties?

Eg "find it elsewhere cheaper ...", or "if we put it on sale within 6 weeks we'll refund the difference"

benj1113• 7 years ago

Yes, and for an extra $5 you can be covered against finding cheaper buyers remorse insurance. And for an extra $1 you can be covered against finding cheaper buyers remorse insurance insurance.

Zoo3y• 7 years ago

The issue is not of value depreciation; anyone willing to drop a few thousand on a new car understands it. New buyers are pissed because they lost the opportunity cost game. They wanted their new toy NOW, and are crying because they're out thousands of dollars because they couldn't wait.

freeopinion3• 7 years ago

Seems more like they wanted their new toy in 52 weeks, and now they have to requeue for 53-57 weeks or forego the price drop.

jeffbax• 7 years ago

Sucks, but cry me a river. I'm more upset we've been tax subsidizing luxury car purchases by $7.5k for years. That should have only existed for the bottom economy models, not status symbols for the wealthy.

antihero• 7 years ago

If the car was worth $200k to you when you bought it, great. If it was not, why did you buy it?

Tesla owners protest over drastic price cuts

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