Consumer Reports Pegs Prime EV Range at 28 Miles

To be clear, New Home territory was me being facetious…

 

They have already acknowledged their sales model will need to shift as they reach high sales numbers.
It will be interesting to see which direction they go.
As long as their is an option for direct sales, that will be my preference.

Millions of cars a year sold though? I'd love to see Tesla have that problem.

 

Folks in California may realize that it was facetious, but those in some other parts of the country may not. There ARE places where $100,000 for a reasonable home is not out of line.

 

In Arizona, you can buy a new home for the price of a $90K Tesla.

 

I have been watching a home renovation show on Netflix that is based in Canada, and I'm shocked at how crappy the homes are when people have a "meager" $500,000 budget. Makes me think Canada is the land of millionaires.

 

Can you haggle the selling price with direct sales? I don't see a "Make Offer" button anywhere on the Tesla site.
My friend went to my local Nissan dealer to buy an NV200 for his business. Everytime he went the dealer, they quoted him a lower price. Everytime the interest rate changes to lower. Everytime the rebate went higher. In 4 visits, the selling price went from 22750 to 21900 to 21000 to 19750. Interest rate went from 7.99 to 6.99 to 5.99 to 3.99. Rebate went from 250 to 1000. They gave a choice to take a cabin divider and a metal storage shelf or take additional 250 off the price making it 19500. BTW, MSRP is 23275 and invoice is 22794. It was cheaper than Truecar and Costco.

 

That's another thing, haggling the price of vehicles sucks. Rarely do we do that with any other new item, so why do we do it with cars? If I wanted to haggle the price of things, I'd move to Mexico. Just give the lowest price due to competitive market forces right from the beginning just like all other products.

Mattress stores and car dealerships; the last vestiges of a bygone era.

 

And haggling for the lowest price can backfire sometimes. Maybe they bring out the car that had some in-transit damage or some known problems. Most of the time a little haggling with the dealer is safe, but you are in a battle to see how much of your money the salesman gets to take home. I do not like to be in struggles like that.

 

I just keep on finding more and more reasons to really like Arizona.

 

It reached 120 degrees in Phoenix in June...

 

It sucks but what are you gonna do? pay full MSRP price? Salesmen would love you. They know you won't pay MSRP so they straight up offer lower than MSRP as opening price. Then you make a counter offer and so on. If you like the deal, take it. If not, walk. It's not that hard. After you walked, they'll call you back with a lower offer than they offered you in the first place. The better you're at it, the more money you'll save. This translates to lower monthly payments which means your 1 hour negotiation is paying for part of your monthly gas expenses for the life of the car.
People haggle prices all the time. You just don't realize it's being done. Most of the time, it's not in the same as directly persuading a salesperson or a cashier to lower the prices like we do with cars. It's more like finding loopholes to get the stores to lower prices. Coupons, double coupons, price match, work the store policy, ask for discounts based on your occupation, just to name a new are all part of haggling prices on products and services other than a car.

I don't know what dealership you shop at but all of the dealerships I bought my cars from are all sight first then negotiate. VIN number and/or stock number is always on the negotiation paperwork. If the dealer made a switcharoo on you then it's fraud on their part. Cooling off period doesn't apply to fraud.

If you don't like the struggle like that then pay MSRP. Just don't get all butt hurt when someone else pay 5 grand less than you for the exact options as yours. When the time comes to sell, your car will sell at the same price as that guy who paid 5 grand less than you. That means you're out 5 grand because you don't like the "struggle."
As for salesman's commission, once the price go lower than a certain point, salesman make the same amount of money.
If you want hassle free way of buying cars, use Truecar.com or Costco Auto. If you're in the military current or past, use USAA. With a little haggling, you could probably get a better deal than those 3 options.

 

I have a 3-bedroom townhouse in a suburb outside Toronto (about 60km from downtown, or about 1 hour in average traffic) which was recently assessed well over $500k. We didn't pay that, it was some strategic property flipping to build equity, but still. It is a large freehold townhouse (about 1800sq ft plus a finished basement, which was larger than many semi's we looked at), but it is still a townhouse. I know Vancouver is just as bad, and often worse.

Inversely, I regularly watch home and reno shows and I find it hard to believe when I see couples in some random non-metropolitan US town complaining that $160k 'only' gets them something like a 3500 sq ft 4-bedroom fully detached home with a finished basement and double car garage and a pool. Feels like a different world, and while I realize incomes vary according to the market, I really doubt it is by a factor of 3x or more...

But I digress, back on topic....

 

There are other ways to not pay MSRP without the hassle. AAA buying service often beats Costco negotiated prices. Many ways to skin a cat, some are less messy than others.

I lived in Dallas for 7 yrs and thought the Phoenix people were crazy to live there. Now, after 28 yrs in Phoenix, I would take Phoenix over Dallas easily.

 

I haggle every car purchase because I never buy new. It's expected on a used item whose condition varies from other similar used items. However, different prices for the exact same product doesn't make any sense. Market forces should cause non-unique products to reach an equilibrium price that can be advertised and sold to the public with very modest profit. Somehow that particular industry has fooled the consumer for a longer period of time than other industries.

I don't want to pay someone to talk me into buying something I can't or shouldn't try to afford. I simply want the auto manufacturer to ship the car I have carefully researched to my door, and pay nothing off the top to middlemen. Perhaps the only reason I might consider purchasing a new vehicle is to buy a Tesla, even though it's not a financially wise move, just for the satisfaction of cutting out the people who provide no added value (and actually take away from it) to my purchasing experience. Heck, if society can figure out how to get along without salesmen, we might eliminate the sociopathic genetic trait altogether.

 

No negotiation needed for 3rd party car buying sites but sometimes the negotiated prices are Volatile. Prices change from day to day and week to week. Those sites can only lock in the price for so long. After that, the prices will change. Some times higher, sometimes lower.

It doesn't but it exists. It varies by date and how well you negotiate the prices.

If you know what you're buying then you don't have to listen to the sales pitch. If you hear pitch coming up, then just walk away. Besides, a lot of dealers have searchable inventory.

I look at it like this. How do I know that Tesla isn't also taking the middleman's cut by selling their cars directly to consumers. How sure are you that the Prius will sell for less if Toyota offers direct sale and ditch the dealers?

 

I'm ok with Tesla keeping the middleman's portion of the profit. If they are successful enough, other manufacturers will emulate that sales model too. Once they do that, market forces will drive the prices and profits lower.

For 10 years I worked as a subcontractor at the same company. My boss lived 1500 miles away, didn't know my work schedule, or the exact scope of the work that I did. Half of my paycheck went to him, while I received the other half. What value was added to the company I worked at by paying twice my salary?

It's genius collecting a portion of others paychecks for the work they do.

I realize middlemen are necessary for some things, for instance, I'm not going to buy 1 cabbage direct from a farmer and also all of my other food items. I'm happy to pay a small premium for someone else to negotiate with producers and offer a variety of food in a single location.

 

it's a difficult game for manufacturers. setting up and maintaining local dealerships, (all over the world) that generally aren't very profitable, except when executed well by local entrepreneurs. i believe that tesla will not be able to maintain the current model as they grow, but will probably come up with something fairly ingenious.

 

But it's a dry heat!