Re:Tesla Faces Accelerating Rate of Model 3 Refunds
by bronson on Tuesday June 05, 2018 @12:00AM
(#17234883)
Do you think the tax credit will still be around by the time Tesla ships a $35000 model 3? That's going to be a narrow buying window!
Re:Tesla Faces Accelerating Rate of Model 3 Refunds
by mcot2 on Tuesday June 05, 2018 @12:12AM
(#17234938)
Probably not the full credit, unless you have a spot in line already. The phase out starts during the quarter when the company hits 200,000 total deliveries. If we assume this is going to be July 1st, then the $7,500 credit is good for Q3 and Q4. This takes us to December 31st.
At this point, the credit is reduced to $3,750 for 6 months and then to $1,875 for 6 months.
Using a lot of speculation and extrapolation, I would estimate that if someone placed an order now and wanted a standard model they would still probably be able to hit either the $3,750 or $1,875 credits.
Re:Tesla Faces Accelerating Rate of Model 3 Refunds
by greglindahl on Tuesday June 05, 2018 @12:51AM
(#17235081)
It's worth noting that the sense of a lot of media is that Congress is going to remove the cap before GM hits it, which is not so different from when Tesla is going to hit it.
And before you think it's a partisan thing, there is significant quiet Republican support for the credit.
Tesla is focusing on producing the higher priced versions first in order to have the cash flow to produce the standard model.
If Tesla wanted to start with producing the standard model first, they probably would have needed a very large cash infusion with unfavorable terms. There are definitely conflicting opinions on this but they have chosen a slightly more conservative route in order to not put the business at risk. The end result is we have to wait a bit longer for the standard model, and as such some people may feel obliged to cancel their order, or even be upsold to a more expensive model 3 or even an S/X.