http://www.teslamotors.com/true-cost-of-ownership
From the site
US Bank and Wells Fargo will provide 10% down financing on approved credit, and the down payment is covered or more than covered by US Federal and state tax credits ranging from $7,500 to $15,000. New Jersey, Washington and DC also have no sales tax for electric vehicles. These advantages are not available when leasing.After 36 months, you have the right, but not the obligation to sell your Model S to Tesla for the same residual value percentage as the iconic Mercedes S Class, one of the finest premium sedans in the world, made by Daimler (also a Tesla partner and investor).
Not only is Tesla guaranteeing that resale value, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk is personally standing behind that guarantee to give customers absolute peace of mind about the value of the asset they are purchasing.
We also encourage you to think about Model S ownership in terms of true out of pocket cost. When considering the savings from using electricity instead of gasoline, depreciation benefits, and other factors, buyers will save hundreds of dollars per month compared to owning a gasoline powered car.
Some of the assumptions they use to reduce the effective monthly cost are pretty comical, including: shortening your commute by spending time in the carpool lane (multiplied time by how much your time is worth), time spent driving to a gas station and refueling (again using how much your time is worth).
The stock is down about 2% in pre-market trading. What do you think, is this a legitimate strategy or a gimmick? I'm leaning towards gimmick but only time will tell.
Maybe I'm missing something, but that number they are quoting is also net of all the potential 'savings' you can garner over that of a normal car. This is actually sad to see that they are having such a hard time selling these things, which I'm assuming because even with subsidies and credits galore they still are having a tough time. I remember seeing WhiteHat post about Tesla awhile back, he might be able to shed more light than I can.
I think it's 75% gimmick, 25% strategy. Their numbers on the "true cost" are very funky. Unless you live in one of the six states that off larger tax credits, you're only saving $11/month driving a Tesla. They automatically include a business tax writeoff that most people can't use, and their gas usage numbers are pretty hilarious ($5.00 average cost of premium over the next three years?). In addition, using opportunity cost in terms of commuting/filling up at a gas station is weak.
I like TSLA but I'm not sure how much this is going to do for them.
I'll write more later, but the best part is that they assume your time is worth $100/hour while you're filling up the gas, but say nothing about the 1h 30m you waste charging the Tesla.
i agree the new financing option is freaking dumb. but they r selling more model s than expected. they r just trying to broaden their customer base and advertising the model s as affordable as an entry level premium car (which is certainly not). however, i still see myself getting a tesla in 5 years.
We need to get something straight here: Tesla is not selling more cars than expected. Tesla is delivering more cars than they told us they were going to deliver, and it's actually very unclear whether or not this is a good thing.
The lease, as far as selling more cars goes, is going to hurt their actual delivery numbers to customers who are actually buying the car. Anyone with a reservation right now may think to cancel and just go with the lease option, and there's a ton of reasons why they would do that. First, the affordability obviously, but also the lease is a chance to "test-drive" the Model S for 3 years and kind of have a hedge against the company not sticking to their guns on new development like the Model X and the Gen III. In that way, leasing is a good option for someone who would have otherwise bought the car.
Most people who would be leasing, however, really don't need the financing to begin with. How many of you will pay $1200 per month the dick around with a Model S? For most people, that's their monthly rent. For the people that it's not, they probably would only like the leasing option as much as it allowed them to not be stuck with paying the full price of a car that might end up being something they hate. And the guarantee by Tesla/Musk is pretty obviously something that was necessary for the banks to grant the financing Tesla wanted at a rate that was reasonable for people just outside the target Tesla customer's budget. My contact at Wells Fargo told me this was not the first time Tesla had come asking about financing, and implied that the main concern was that the cars may not hold their value as well as ICE cars because of the battery issues, so the repo-guarantee was pretty much necessary. Not something I'd like to see out of any other automaker...
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