Who would commit a down payment today?

[nitrohuck]

This is nothing less than wishful thinking... but who here would pony up a 10% down payment today in order to solidify themselves on an actual pre-order list that is much less likely to drastically change as time goes on?

a $100 refundable deposit is a joke. Granted it allows Tesla to boast they have the better part of a million pre-orders, but it is obviously a grossly inflated number, and once the CT's are actually available for purchase it will change drastically.

If Tesla emailed me today offering to put me on some sort of "serious buyer" list, and gave me an actual line number on a newly formulated pre-order list, I would be on it immediately. Separate the wheat from the chafe, and allow for the serious buyers to get a (much better) idea of what their true delivery ETA might be.

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[Doug McAllister]

I would gladly put up to half down, but not until I see the final specs and design.

 

[rharl]

I would now but most likely would not have when i placed it week of reveal. I think the low barrier for reservation worked on many. I did it on a whim then became a huge fan as i was invested so to say.

 

[Crissa]

It's not a joke. Somewhere there is account with 100 million dollars sitting in it gaining interest. Their credit-card processor walked off with over a million dollars for very little work. And this pile gives them a huge amount of leverage.

Now, I could put down a down payment. But to what end? Then I'm not getting any interest on my money and they have to juggle an even larger pile.

Sure, I would do it, because they have executed and delivered in the past and my investment opportunities are not great compared to the cash and taxes I'd face. (The profit ends up being eaten by the labor and transaction costs)

But there wouldn't be any point to it.

-Crissa

 

[nitrohuck]

It's not a joke. Somewhere there is account with 100 million dollars sitting in it gaining interest. Their credit-card processor walked off with over a million dollars for very little work. And this pile gives them a huge amount of leverage.

Now, I could put down a down payment. But to what end? Then I'm not getting any interest on my money and they have to juggle an even larger pile.

Sure, I would do it, because they have executed and delivered in the past and my investment opportunities are not great compared to the cash and taxes I'd face. (The profit ends up being eaten by the labor and transaction costs)

But there wouldn't be any point to it.

-Crissa

I hear you there. At the same time a 10% downpayment to solidify an actual line number and have a delivery date that I could more heavily rely on would be worth it to me, while the rest of my money works in the market for 1+yrs... This is obviously subjective,

 

[Crissa]

They won't be able to give a delivery date for some time. Right now the plus or minus is really large, and will slowly get down. For a Model Y, which is in production, the spread is four weeks! Tesla pushed things for speed, which means less timing accuracy.

-Crissa

 

[LoPro]

If it meant it actually would come to Norway and I could get a month (and year!) to expect it, sure! That’s a big unknown with the preorders at the current time and that would make so happy I’d pony up almost anything. Well, 10% until final visualizations and specs.

 

[Diehard]

I can see how this would work well for Tesla but I can’t see why I would want it. Sure they can pull a conservative date out of their hat and change it multiple times (Like the size of CT) and be late or early at the end. However putting more money down is not going to change anything on the ground. Their lack of communication and inherent uncertainty in a very complex process is not a matter of money.

If there were reviews out there of actual production CT and I could test drive it and see it up close, I would pay for the whole thing cash today if I could get it in 6 months. If they asked me to pay 10% none refundable with an actual date that is three years down the road, it would be a tough choice but I may go for an ICE today and replace it with a CT 5+ years later.

 

[Nathon]

I for one certainly would not. Although I’m very optimistic that this truck will be all that we could hope for in all its awesomeness, we really don’t know hardly anything about it. The factory is still under construction, no real delivery date yet, hell, we don’t even know what kind of wipers, mirrors and available options it actually has. I’ll be happy to put the money down when they’ve been delivered and fully reviewed by real time drivers. Until then, I’ll hold on to my cash.

 

[Cymerax]

Without getting too caught up in the accuracy of the delivery date, if paying a larger down payment would secure me a definitive place in line, then I would be more than willing to shell out $5k.

I'd rather know that I'm going to be the 20,000th customer in line for a DMLR CT rather than some nebulous guesstimate of 50,000th give or take depending on the number of cancellations, dreamers and plain old looky-loos ;?) That way, once deliveries commenced, I'd have a pretty solid timeline as to when I'd need to get my ducks in a row

 

[Hungedu]

Show me photos of the final production version with full specs, and I'd consider it.

 

[flowerlandfilms]

...i would not...
...i don't have the money yet...

 

[AMTT1]

Absolutely, providing that it would be fully refundable because you can't forsee every circumstance.

 

[Jhodgesatmb]

I would gladly put up to half down, but not until I see the final specs and design.

I agree

 

[Jhodgesatmb]

Since this is all hypothetical and we know that Tesla will never do it, and given that I will purchase my truck come hell or high water, with the specs he provided at the unveiling, and that I was willing to put down $2,500 refundable for a Model Y that wasn’t nearly as attractive to me as the CT, I would absolutely be willing. I do like the idea of guaranteeing a place in line, or even restarting the numbering, but I know it won’t happen. So I see this exercise as a tease because We are all suffering - and the shutdown in Texas isn’t making matters any better. I would love to see the full feature set and specs but I also don’t expect that to happen. I do wonder what ever happened to Elon Musk’s promise to show us the updated design. That is frustrating to say the least.