Tesla Pricing wiedness

The purchase price is $41K plus sales tax, then plus delivery costs. So quite a bit more than $41K! That's what you'll have to come up with to pick up the car.

That lower amount is Tesla's unfortunate hocus-pocus BS figure that figures the savings in gas you won't be using over some number of years and then the $3,750 federal tax benefit, if you qualify for it at the end of 2019.

 

It says very clearly on the Tesla website:

"Incentives & Gas Savings

• Model 3 Standard Plus Rear-Wheel Drive$39,500
• Incentives- $6,250
• Gas Savings- $4,300

• Price after Est. Savings$28,950"

 

what are the incentives?

agree on gas savings, that is hocus locus, it depends on your electrical rate

 

Probably $3750 federal tax and $2500 CA clean air rebate

Mike

 

That's a good local tax break in Cali - go for it!

 

I agree Mike, but I also got a $450 rebate from my local utility. Tesla is also including the "Partial Premium Interior" at this time which I believe is a $2000 option. How long that will last only DOG knows.

 

Tesla uses an average electrical rate. in Californation, the savings are less because of high utility rates EXCEPT for those of us who have solar panels and pay close to nothing for electricity. Hocus locus or not, gas and maintenance savings are money in your pocket

 

I too found the Tesla 'Bill of Sale' sheet confusing. So I took it to my banker handling my loan and we called the local Tesla Store to conference call with their sales rep. My banker asked the right questions and we quickly resolved how much we needed to finance.

Since I live in Alabama, Tesla financing is not available. So I used my local bank and we quickly figured out what it would take. My only surprise was being charged sales tax at the tag office. Regardless, problem solved.

Bob Wilson

 

is the tesla sight cost information based on zip code?

 

That is the norm to allow collection of tax on cars bought out of state. Most dealers have the power to act as a tag office, so many may not have had to deal with registering a new to them car on their own.

 

Most Tesla fans for years have asked them to stop displaying such a number as the price of the vehicle. Kinda deceptive, plus I'm guessing that all those discounts would apply only to a very small percentage of their buyers.

 

But go back to when you bought the solar panels. Invest the money you spent on the panels into the stock market (something average like VTSAX). Are you ahead? This relates to opportunity costs. Every monetary unit you spend on one thing you can't spend on another.

Depreciation (the amount you have to be saving to ultimately replace an asset (like solar panels) when its useful life expires) is another aspect of TCO. If the money you save on gas is offset by the depreciation of an asset, the numbers change.

You may be selling electricity or changing your car or powering your house or all three but TINSTAAFL.

 

to me, the price is the msrp. i have to figure out what incentives i qualify for, and what my electricity rate converts to vs current gas prices, and what i perceive future prices will be while i own the car.

then i can get to a reasonable bottom line, albeit fraught with crystal ball accuracy.

 

Doing something positive about greenhouse gases, one household at a time, is more important to me than maximizing the return on an investment. I have a comfortable house, a space age car, a loving family, and I cruise the oceans about 30 days a year. What would I do with more money from a higher rate of investment? Fortunately, solar panel retrofits are springing up like dandelions in California. It just makes sense and cents.

 

At my age, I just subjectively figure what will give me the most pleasure in the remaining years of my life. (I have always wanted to own a Harley chopper, but the responsible me said that would be irresponsible. Sooooooooo, I am going to buy a chopper electric bicycle (Civi Cheetah) to ride around my neighborhood because the irresponsible me said that would be responsible. )

 

I don't disagree with your choice. But neither can I let a "it saves money" argument go by without questioning if it really does.

Does that cruise do good things for the environment? Mine don't. I have this notion to buy a boat/yacht and do the great loop ... start on the east coast and by way of NY and Chicago and New Orleans work my way back to where I started. But when I think of the impact of burning that much fuel. 100k equivalent hybrid Prius v miles. Look up emissions per passenger mile for the flight to get to the cruise and the per passenger mile of the cruise and I'll bet that solar panel and car get canceled out really quickly.

 

I've done the math for me personally. You don't know my particular circumstances. My solar panels and electric car do not get cancelled out by my lifestyle. Maybe yours would, but mine don't.

 

cost of risk management?
buy stock & you may take a bath. Buy PV panels, and over X years, they pay for their self, then pay for home lighting, security, communication, cooking, refrigeration, entertainment, climate control, PLUS transportation fuel for multiple vehicles. Sure thing. Especially beneficial going into retirement. We were fully amortized back in 2015.

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another benefit to sunny california