Tesla Answers Your Model 3 Questions Before You Ask

April 8, 20168 years ago Kyle Field 39 Comments

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In attempt to get ahead of the thousands of inevitably repeat questions current and potential Tesla Model 3 reservation holders will ask, Tesla went ahead and posted a FAQ sheet for Model 3 reservations. While it doesn’t reveal much that we didn’t know already, it sheds light on a few key points that are worth highlighting.

Tax Incentive

Tesla is well aware of the importance of the US EV Federal Tax Incentive. Elon unofficially confirmed that Tesla would take actions to maximize the benefit buyers get from the tax rebate in his Twitterfest earlier this week, but now it’s documented, in the name of the company. Tesla is aware of just how big of a deal the rebate is and will make efforts to inform buyers as to their relative eligibility.

There will be an awkward tail-off of the federal rebate after Tesla sells its 200,000th vehicle in the US (because they’re all EVs). That triggers a decrease in the rebate for buyers. Some buyers may be banking on the $7500 federal rebate to get the car to fit into their budgets, so this is a point worth noting. Either way, state rebates still apply, with some ranging as high as $6,000… like in Colorado.

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Test Drives

Tesla also wanted to nip any test drive questions and rumors in the bud, sharing that Model 3 test drives would not be available until the same “late 2017” as the start of production. This is a bummer but not an unexpected one. Just think what Model 3 reservations would spike up to if we had a few dozen of them sprinkled around to let folks cruise around in… but yeah, with several hundred thousand reservations already queued up, that’s probably not worth focusing on right now. A guy can still dream, right?

Start of Shipments

While the start of production is supposed to be kicking in sometime in late 2017, we really have no idea when the start of shipments will be. Tesla confirmed again in the FAQs the timing we already had visibility of, with no additional details provided. Bummer.

Reservation Cancellations

Tesla is building in the ability to cancel a reservation into the MyTesla page. It doesn’t sound like they are expecting lots of cancellations, but rather, want to reassure all the people who put $1000 of their hard-earned money into the Tesla machine that they can get it back out again if they’re having second thoughts.

Also, automating the process keeps the effort Tesla needs to expend supporting cancellations to a minimum, so all the good people at Tesla can work on important stuff like scaling up the factory for Model 3 production, building the Gigafactory up from the current 14% capacity to full production, and going out to pick up macaroons for people waiting in line. Maybe not that last one, but you get my point.