Tesla Model S waffling

[Alan]

Does Tesla offer a 2 year lease ? I never thought of this car as a replacement for the 550 being that you could only buy it but if a short term lease was available I would definitely consider it ...

[ZBB]

Originally Posted by AF

Does Tesla offer a 2 year lease ? I never thought of this car as a replacement for the 550 being that you could only buy it but if a short term lease was available I would definitely consider it ...

Yes -- they are currently offering a 2-year lease as a trial. Through mid Sept...

If you are interested, here's my referral link -- will save you $1k...
http://ts.la/matt7103

Edit: There are are few posts over at TMC about some decent lease prices people are getting on Tesla inventory cars -- which Tesla commonly uses as loaners, so they may have a 3-4k miles on them, but have not been previously titled. Tesla discounts those, which works out favorably in the lease calc.

[clyde]

Originally Posted by AF

Does Tesla offer a 2 year lease ? I never thought of this car as a replacement for the 550 being that you could only buy it but if a short term lease was available I would definitely consider it ...

Tesla introduced two year leases, but they look pretty horrible. Their website lets you calculate money down and monthly payments, but doesn't tell you residual and other key details. It also looks like they might only leasing demo cars once they've hit a certain mileage. They're not being straightforward about residuals, looks like they're playing games with cap cost reduction (see "demo with miles"), glossing over details about how the fed tax credit works for leased vehicles, and including a nice chunk of fees.

Yes, they offer two year leases, but the real question is why would you?

[robg]

Originally Posted by clyde

Tesla introduced two year leases, but they look pretty horrible. Their website lets you calculate money down and monthly payments, but doesn't tell you residual and other key details. It also looks like they might only leasing demo cars once they've hit a certain mileage. They're not being straightforward about residuals, looks like they're playing games with cap cost reduction (see "demo with miles"), glossing over details about how the fed tax credit works for leased vehicles, and including a nice chunk of fees.

Yes, they offer two year leases, but the real question is why would you?

Agree- it seems hard to do worse than a Tesla lease. They basically run atleast 900/month for a base model 60 when you factor in the down payment, etc. Totally crazy. Makes Audi leases seem like a good idea.

The other annoying and ridiculous thing they do is require that you make a downpayment on a lease. I've never heard of that before. NEgates one of the benefits of leasing which is the gap insurance. If you make a hefty downpayment on a lease and it gets lost or stolen you're now out of that money.

[JST]

Have a service loaner for the weekend. It's an early car--VIN 4000, so probably a 2012? But it's an 85, and is essentially identically equipped to my car but for the wheels.



A few thoughts--it's only got 25K miles but is clearly more rattly than my car. Not sure if the difference is in build quality or just from different lives the cars have led.

It has the 21" wheels, along with a set of Pilot Sports, which have a noticeable impact on range. I'd say a 20 percent hit on the highway compared to my car? But, omg, they really do look good. Despite the range hit I might need to source a set.

It has some of the pre-decontent features, like the leather on the doors and fog lights. Missing folding mirrors and park distance control, though.

[ZBB]

Vin 4000 would be a dec 2012 or Jan 2013 delivery (most likely). Mine is in the 11k range and was a May 2013 build (and has the extra leather and lighting that was later made optional, but no parking sensors or folding mirrors). Just passed 60k miles about 2 weeks go.

My car has developed 2 rattles -- one sounds like it's coming from the passenger rear seat latch -- when that seat is down, it's gone. The other is intermittent and is from the dash. If i push the dash towards the windshield, it goes away for a day or two.

[ZBB]

Anyone following Tesla's announcement tonight?

Autopilot hardware updated. More cameras and updated sensors. Allows full self driving in a future software update by the end of 2017. Enhanced autopilot software is planned to be released in December.

Cost is now $5k for enhanced autopilot to be enabled, and another $3k for full self driving

Features will also make it to Model 3...

[clyde]

Originally Posted by ZBB

Anyone following Tesla's announcement tonight?

Autopilot hardware updated. More cameras and updated sensors. Allows full self driving in a future software update by the end of 2017. Enhanced autopilot software is planned to be released in December.

Cost is now $5k for enhanced autopilot to be enabled, and another $3k for full self driving

Features will also make it to Model 3...

Woohoo! Elon's going to kill more people before anyone's willing to stop him.

[equ]

Originally Posted by ZBB

Cost is now $5k for enhanced autopilot to be enabled, and another $3k for full self driving

Features will also make it to Model 3...

These are troubling choice of words.

[bren]

Ignoring the sketchy "black box" logging/data sharing issue - the plan to look at how autopilot and human actions differ in an accident will be pretty neat to see.