The Tesla Model X SUV will begin hitting the company’s showrooms throughout the US towards the beginning of January, according to some recent reports.
One of the sources for this assertion is a recent posting on the Tesla Motors Club forum that saw a Model X reservation holder share his recent experience talking to a rep about seeing one of the electric SUVs in person before confirming his reservation.
Here’s the comment in question (from “tsw4life“):
I was just invited to build my model X yesterday (reservation # in the 9600s), and of course I’d like to see the car in person before buying, so I called the number given in the email to ask about this. Was told by the rep there’s no hurry on completing my reservation, I was not at any risk of losing my position, and that the X would be available to see in show rooms at the beginning of January.
I asked again to confirm I would be losing my place if I wanted until then, he said nope, you can wait until you see it, and they would contact me if I get to a point where I’m in danger of losing my place.
He later reiterated with an edit that he meant that he would not be losing his place by waiting: “Typo, meant to say I asked again to confirm I would NOT be losing my place if I waited until then.”
These appears to be conflicting information on this last matter, though, as noted by “MrBoylan:”
Yeah, the wording about this is fairly vague in the e-mails I’ve received, but my understanding is that delivery order is based on confirmation date and configuration. “Reservation number” only determines when you get invited to configure. And they’ve been doing that in huge batches with the X.
I took two weeks to configure (invited on 11/30, ordered on 12/13). I fully expect that higher reservation numbers who clicked buy (and confirmed) before I did will get their cars before me, assuming identical configurations. And I think that’s OK as it shows a higher commitment to purchase than I had. Think about it: if signature reservation holder #50 confirmed on September 15th, but another signature reservation holder (#25) hasn’t confirmed yet, Signature #25 definitely “lost” his or her place in line: Sig 50 may be driving around town next week while Sig 25 is still trying to decide what to do. But if Sig 25 and Sig 50 confirm on the same day (with similar configurations), I would expect Sig 25 to get his or her car first.
For regular production 90Ds like me, since we already know there will be delays, I’m really not sure whether they would prioritize mine over a higher reservation number who ordered a 90D few days before me. I wouldn’t be that upset either way. But I would say for the P90D in particular, it seems like they’re moving those into production pretty quickly so there will be quite a bit of out of order delivery for those. They can’t hold the line up forever.
So, who knows? Hopefully the point about Model Xs arriving at showrooms in January is correct, though.