I’m not particularly familiar with Tesla’s policies towards the trading in of old vehicles for credit towards new purchases, but a recent comment on the GM-Volt.com discussion forum on the matter did catch my attention. And it makes me wonder, has Tesla recently changed its policies on the matter?
The comment below, from “Dodman” on the GM-Volt.com forum, explains:
“Not Volt related but interesting story about Tesla’s sales efforts. My son has a 2 year old Model S with about 22,000 miles. Been a great car and no issues but he always lamented the release of the AWD model not long after he took delivery of his RWD car. He was on the Tesla website a few weeks ago playing around with the build your own function just for kicks and giggles with no intention of trading his car. The next day he received a call from Tesla which was prompted by his visit to their website. He told the caller he was just fooling around but one thing led to another and now he is the owner of a new AWD Model S. Basically they took his car as a trade and kept his payment to about the same as it was on the older model. He will also get our state EV rebate and Federal tax credit…. win/win for him. He is thrilled with the extra range and quickness of the new car, and he especially loves the Adaptive Cruise. He said it works great as does the self parking feature. He has tried the Auto Drive and says it works well also but he only uses it on late night returns from his job when the highway is relatively clear. I’ve been on the Chevy website playing with the build your own function but funny thing… no calls from Chevy or my dealer. Kudos to Tesla!”
Doesn’t sound like a bad deal. All the features that accompany the refresh for the same monthly payment amount — who would say no to that? Has anyone else had this experience as well? Or was this more of a fluke occurrence? It’s the first we’ve heard of this type of activity from Tesla.
The question that’s raised as well, of course, is why Tesla is selling in this way now. Is it another test to see if it is more efficient than other sales processes? Is Tesla feverishly working to make its sales targets? Is Tesla making a strong profit on trade-ins like this? Is it looking to get old models out of the wild in order to add all of the upgrades the company has figured out in the past few years?
Of course, this is also just one story. There’s the possibility of misunderstanding and simple timing coincidence here.
Photo by Kyle Field | CleanTechnica
Same payment, but it goes a couple of years further into the future, I imagine.
CPOs should bring company more cash then new sales. It’s how it works for any company. You basically sell the car twice 😉
Tesla may also be able to add the new features to the car and then sell it as more optioned variant for even bigger profit.