They've been sitting on $5k of your money for four years, and you haven't contacted them for it back?

Look at the man's profile. He has quite a bit of money, I speculate.

That's an awfully nice interest rate on that loan he made to Tesla (from Tesla's perspective)

Tesla also makes a tidy profit on each car sold.

The Model S has been out for a long time now, it looks as if that's a pretty bad way to deal with downpayments.

Here in nl the law is pretty strict about downpayments, if you accept a downpayment you have to keep the item in reserve for that particular customer. That's easy enough to check with a vehicle (they have a VIN after all).

At a minimum you should get some compensation for financing them to the tune of $5K over a longer period of time.

Tens of thousands of people have successfully used Tesla's reservation system.

I'd bet that if Tesla took reservations in NL at all that they complied with the local law. For example, in the US it doesn't turn into a firm order until you go through the final feature pick right before production. Before that either side can cancel for any reason. That might make it not a downpayment in NL.

Is it a down payment? Or an option?

Cars they don't exist yet funny have Vin yet

That's bizarre. I put my 5k in around the end of 2011 and got my car at the end of 2012. I didn't have any weird trouble. they must have lost your money. when you log in at tesla motors.com and look at your account, what does it say?

Almost assuredly it's a liability on their books, meaning they haven't recognized it as an income or asset.

Just a quick technicality note: they would have it on their books as both an asset and a liability. The cash they received would be the asset, and the money owed back as a liability.

Have to keep "assets = liabilities + equity" balanced!

Thanks, been a long time since accounting classes.