Tracking Tesla's Quiet Changes To the Model S 106
cartechboy (2660665) writes "Tesla won't reveal its production figures every quarter, but it has now likely built about 50,000 all-electric Model S luxury sport sedans. Unlike other automakers, Tesla doesn't group its changes to a model year, rather it makes running changes to cars whenever updates are tested, validated, and ready to roll out. Which raises the question, are model year 2012 Model S sedans already outdated? The answer is it depends how you look at it. From a powertrain perspective, no. There are still two battery-size options and the shape is still the same. But under the surface of the car there are a surprising number of updates and new options. Not including software changes (of which there are dozens already pushed to the car), changes range from power folding mirrors and a new cold-weather package (which cannot be retrofitted) to a new ultra-high-fidelity sound package and three-zone, three-mode rear seat heaters. It's worth noting that none of these are mandatory changes — there are merely options that have been added to the roster of available equipment."
"Unlike other automakers, Tesla..." (Score:4, Informative)
Not so. Different manufactorers have different approaches - PSA for example have always had a "continual change" process so that what's available not is slightly different to 3 months ago, and slightly more different to 6 months ago, independantly of "new model facelifts".
Ripe for abuse (Score:5, Informative)
I had actually ordered a Tesla, but cancelled it largely due to their: "ultra-high-fidelity sound package." The $2500 ultra-high-fidelity sound package" is the exact same package as the original $500 "sound studio" package. The only difference is the price hike and they now list the subwoofer as speaker 12 vs. they used to only list 11 speakers -- everything else is the same which my dealer admitted to me as did the stick on a previous model car sitting in the shop area. If you want a citation, see: http://www.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/new-sound-system .
When I began investigating the updates that Tesla had been rolling out, it untangled a lovely mess of what amounted to nothing more than price hikes. The sound system was the most obvious, but the "leather" package is another. It's now split into multiple packages at 3X the price vs. the former single package that included everything.
Tesla's upgrade system makes it very difficulty to sort out, and I found the practice highly deceptive. The final straw was when I went to pick up my car. They showed me my car at just under $90,000, and then a demo car that had just been delivered that was under the old pricing with substantially more features on it than the car I had ordered. At a $2,000 difference, it was a no-brainer. They went to do the paperwork and told me that couldn't sell it under the previous pricing (aka. before the packages had been split up, sound system jacked to $2500, etc.), but could sell it to me for $108,000.
I walked out. They're welcome to make money, but their system is confusing and I believe designed to hide their price gouging. I found the practice to be worthy of a traditional car dealership, and not something I wanted to participate in.
Oh well, I'm sure they sold both cars to someone else.