There is some background required here:
We begin, dear readers, with a car accident in 2016. An accident wherein our hero, the wonderful hus-creature and his faithful steed the Chevy Volt were stationary waiting to turn into the local rubbish dump, and got rear ended by a stupid (woman) driver in a very old Skoda.
Cue the exchanging of insurance details and immediate admission of fault from other stupid driver.
Addendum: I am completely convinced she was on her phone somehow at the time, as she never quibbled once.
But you see, our beloved steed was no longer road safe. Bits were hanging off the front, but fortunately the battery cage protected the car’s vital organs.
So the insurance company provided us with a courtesy car.
A VW diesel Passat. Which was apparently Car of the Year in 2013.
But it is Diesel. When we are used to a true hybrid.
It handled like a cow. And not a graceful one. Nico Bellic was feather light in comparison.
Your courageous author merely had a provisional licence at this time, and so was unable to drive it, and so I am therefore only able to repeat what the usual driver told me of his experience.
He drove it three.miles.
Came home, declared that we were never having a dinosaur powered car again. And how did I fancy a Tesla?
I fancied one very much thank you. But never, for a moment did I imagine that he was serious.
The next moment I am handed proof of a reservation for the upcoming Tesla Model 3.
Which is due for release in the UK late 2019.
Please note that this is for the UK.
The observant amongst you will have noted that we are no longer in the UK.
As soon as we moved, back in July, we headed to the Central Boston Tesla Store (it is not a dealership) to see if we were able to transfer our current Model 3 reservation cross-continent.
We were-assured that as production had not yet begun, and the hus-creaturehad already switched the address of the reservation to a USA based one, that there would be no problem.
He even checked with the high ups.
Their website also confirmed this in their FAQ Section*
So we muddled along under the assumption that our reservation would be brought forward to Spring 2018.
Well, that still left us car-less. So we began to consider our options.
Front runner was to use house sale profits to buy a second hand Tesla Model S.
Yes, a luxury car, with no tax breaks or state benefits, because not new, but we would be entitled to free fast charging as that was a service transferred with the vehicle and not its owner.
And, frankly the S is sexy as heck.
Then we would use the S as collateral for our new Model 3 and get some tax breaks.
But lo and behold our “easy” house sale drags on. And on. And on.
And in the meantime the resell price is used Tesla’s increases. Which means that by end of September, they are way out of budget by over $10K
😱😭🙀😰
And Tesla have not backdated our reservation. At all.
And when husband type person contacts them directly to enquire as to why this might be, is told “oh no, that cannot happen. You will need to re-reserve” But have to put down another $1,000 deposit, and lose our place in the queue.
He points out that this contravenes both the information given in person in July and what is stated on their own website FAQs. They hem and haw and bugger off for over a week. Then tell us that if we cancel our UK reservation and make a new Stateside one, they will refund the second money (as refunding £1000 into dollars will cost more) and backdate the reservation date.
Except that was over four weeks ago and none of this has been done.
Our USA reservation still shows our UK delivery date. No sign of the money.
And their customer service has been shocking. Totally non-existent.
So we started looking at options. And, frankly, I was (and am) so grumpy with Tesla that even with it being a dream car I had gone off the idea.
The Chevy Bolt is new. It is shiny. I know how to drive it. It has all the shiny gadgets, and Chevy has excellent customer service.
And we can knock $10,000 off the initial cost due to federal and state incentives.
Ok some of that money won’t be returned until tax season, but it was a big carrot.
So, I have put on my big girl grown up pants and said goodbye to Tesla for now.
We haven’t cancelled our second reservation – yet – since it may prove useful longer term. But I’m just going to forget about it for now.
And stroke our new shiny:
*And in fact it still does
