After configuring my\u00a0rear-wheel-drive<\/a>, Obsidian Black-with-19-inch-wheels Model 3 in June, Tesla predicted the car would arrive between September and November. I was optimistic, however \u2014\u00a0based on deliveries to Michigan friends \u2014\u00a0that it could arrive in less than a month.<\/p>\nSix weeks crawled by.<\/p>\n
I called Las Vegas \u2014\u00a0Tesla dispatch central\u00a0\u2014\u00a0on Aug.\u00a08 for an update. Dispatch told me they had been deluged by orders at the end of July\u00a0as Tesla ended free, LTE cell service. The new cost? $100 a year. Proof that even folks paying $50K\u00a0for a car smell a deal.<\/p>\n
But other smells were sowing concern. On Aug.\u00a07, Musk\u00a0tweeted in apparent violation of SEC rules that he was taking the company private. Tesla\u00a0forums brimmed with customer tales of delivery dates gone awry. Tesla HQ\u00a0was a revolving door of executive departures. Then Musk stunk up the joint (pun intended) in September with a pot-fueled interview.<\/p>\n
Not the kind of news that inspires confidence in customers holding $50,000 luxury car orders. On Sept.\u00a017, the call (well, text) finally came from Vegas:<\/p>\n
Hey, Henry, this is Jackie from Tesla. I am reaching out about your Model 3 order. I am able to offer you delivery as soon as this month.\u00a0Can I schedule you for September 27th?<\/em><\/p>\nThat proved optimistic, too. After some delivery date ping-pong, my pick-up was\u00a0pushed back to Oct.\u00a026. A Tesla contractor\u00a0told me\u00a0the company’s rush to meet third-quarter\u00a0(Sept.\u00a030) profit deadlines had jammed the pipelines.<\/p>\n
In Jersey Oct.\u00a018 for my son’s wedding, I got a call from Robert at Tesla Cleveland.\u00a0Can you pick up your car Monday the 22nd?<\/em>\u00a0I would be there, with insurance and the $57,450 balance in hand.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
What\u00a0happened to the promised, $35,000, affordable Model 3? It won’t be\u00a0delivered until early next year \u2014\u00a0assuming customers still want it after\u00a0the federal $7,500 tax credit runs out this winter.<\/p>\n
As\u00a0chaotic as delivery hell was, the Tesla dealer process is a model of efficiency.<\/p>\n
Tesla handed me the keys to a gratis\u00a0Enterprise rental to make the one-way trek to Lyndhurst (outside Cleveland)\u00a0to pick up the future of sustainable transportation. My ride? An ironic,\u00a0ginormous Nissan Armada SUV. Half-a-tank of gas. Range: 200-something. Gas infrastructure everywhere. I made it in three hours flat.<\/p>\n
Since Tesla dealers are factory stores, the dealer process is a formality. All cars on the lot are spoken for \u2014\u00a0delivered to customer spec. No haggling. Indeed, to help with the flood of September deliveries, the Cleveland store brought in\u00a0existing Tesla owners to help with vehicle check out.<\/p>\n
My salesman spent his time explaining\u00a0the spaceship’s tech-tastic features to me\u00a0\u2014\u00a0automatic lane change, streaming audio services, regenerative braking, voice commands.\u00a0We went over every inch of the car including build defects (Tesla\u00a0quality still lags).<\/p>\n
Before I rocketed home on 307 pound feet of electric torque, Tesla topped up the battery with 300 miles of range. Unlike the Armada, charging infrastructure for the 3 is spare.<\/p>\n
Cooling my heels in the waiting room, I\u00a0talked with another Tesla owner. He had first approached a Chevy dealer about buying a Bolt EV. The lot was littered with Bolts, but he said the salespeople were light on details and wouldn’t negotiate price.<\/p>\n
Frustrated, he sought out Tesla online and placed his\u00a0order. “It’s been a fantastic journey,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Henry Payne deposited $1,000, along with 450,000 other customers, to get a first-row seat to the production of the first volume vehicle in the\u00a0first viable auto startup in a lifetime. Each step in my 31-month journey to buy a Tesla Model 3 has been an adventure. Delivery was no different. Since configuring my car June […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23012"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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