Here’s how my delivery experience went. It was fantastic and took all of 15 min.

I arrived and my 3 and another were in the delivery bays. One of the delivery guys gives me the walk around and overview of the car — how to plug it in, use the center screen, pair my phone to the car as a key, etc. He asked if I had any questions and I let him know I owned a Model S for over 5 years, so I’d didn’t have many, but we then went through the few I had. They then gave me time to walk around and inspect the car. While inspecting, another person came out to go through the final paperwork - on the counter in the delivery bay (not some “finance manager’s” office). I pointed out the paint defect, and he took a picture of it and noted it on the delivery doc. I then signed the minimal amount of things (final sales contract, temp registration and POA authorizing them to title and register the car.). Final step was to sign into my Tesla account on their Mac so I could do the ACH to pay for the car. Done.

The Model S was different. It was already paid for before Tesla shipped it. UPS delivered to my house a few days later.

So I dropped the 3 off at service yesterday to have the defects corrected. It’s still at the body shop for the paint repair. Sounds like I won’t get it back to Monday...

Assuming you guys are all buying your 3 instead of leasing? Wondering what your plans are longer term, say 5 years, when the battery is getting used up and tech out of date.

The Model S has aged well tech wise but now every other car manufacturer is going after this market so expect to tech improved rapidly.


I am lazy but what happens after a year when the free data connection is done. Can you run without it our have to purchase a service plan?

TIA

I don't think about that. This is not only the most expensive vehicle I've ever purchased, but it will likely be the fastest depreciating.

So I don't think about that.

See above.

I think you basically have to buy it. It's like $100/year . Super annoying that I have to pay for it. But whatever.

thanks :cool:

Looks like you’ll still get basic functionality even without a data plan
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-prem...ackage-july-1/

Oh, you get more than I realized you do without the premium connectivity.

But nav routing without traffic info? That's useless to me.

My current car is nearly 5 years old. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the tech; it’s generally been upgraded along with the rest of the fleet, though there are some things it doesn’t have the hardware to do.

It’s got 43,000 miles on it and the battery is still pretty strong. Instead of 210 at 80 percent it charges to 203.

It remains faster and better in most ways than nearly every other car on the market, even 4+ years on.

I’m selling it now to buy a Model 3, mostly because I want the tax credit. If I had to keep it a couple of more years, I could.

I don’t know if the Model 3 will age that well, but I don’t see why it won’t.

Good point. Just like any car, there will be incremental improvements over the next 5 years along with slight degradation of the battery. It’s possible they’ll add some additional hardware features (HUD? A few more physical buttons? Faster processor Etc) and incremental battery improvements but if you’re happy with the features it has now that’s not a big deal.

I had my Model S for just over 5 years and 3 months. I put about 93,500 miles on it. I sold it to Carmax for 36% of what I paid for it (after the tax credit). That’s actually a pretty decent residual for that old of a car with high mileage (almost 18k per year).

As for the tech on it, I agree with JST. It wasn’t particularly outdated, and was still receiving software updates from Tesla on a regular basis (I averaged an update about once a month over the 5 years) - even adding new features this year (completely new Nav system and the Easy Entry option). Tesla did add hardware features to new cars (all the autopilot stuff), and did upgrades (seats in particular) that would have been nice. But I bought what was avail in 2013 - and it was the best car I ever had.

My battery was showing about 10% degradation when I sold it. It was also the smaller 60kWh battery, so 93k miles equates to about 460 charge cycles (JST’s 43k miles on the 85kWh battery equates to only 185 cycles). But even with 10% less range, we still did road trips and we didn’t have any real range issues. For the Model 3, the same mileage equates to only ~300 cycles — so I’d expect less degradation. Plus it has a starting range of 310 miles, so a little degradation has less impact than it did on my S, which really didn’t impact my ability to use the car.

It’s great that other automakers are now bringing out competing cars. But why do you assume their tech will be better? Tesla has over a decade head start over them in the core EV tech, and builds their batteries and motors in-house. The competitors have more experience with manufacturing, but still think like legacy automakers. I doubt any of them will offer over the air software updates, nor will the add new features to the car over time (software features).

As for the data plan... I’ll pay it when Tesla makes me. The Model S was supposed to have a paid data plan after 4 years (or Jan 2018 for those that bought prior to the paid data announcement). Jan 2018 came and went and I never had to pay for data. But $100 per year is not a big deal to keep the “upgrade” features like traffic aware nav and audio streaming. Hell, BMW will now charge $80 per year after the first year to keep CarPlay active, and connected data plans are becoming more common, so it’s not like this is unique to Tesla...