Yeah, you should! Instant torque with that handling - every corner is a feast! I stop now...
You probably have never bought a Tesla. I bought four, order communication is not great at all - most of the time you order the car, nothing until a day to a week before delivery day. Yea there is a window on an app, but it means nothing as it changes every day and moves by weeks or months. I know someone who ordered a Tesla Model 3 in May, had their estimated delivery by end of June, still doesn't have the car but expecting it in the next 1-2 weeks, and just received a notification that some safety features on the car will not work for some unspecified time because Tesla decided to switch from radar based to camera vision based software which is not ready, but the new production cars don't have the radar sensor anymore. So at least they improved the communication a bit, perhaps after being sued last time they did that when moving from Autopilot 1 to Autopilot 2 and disabling all features like automatic emergency braking for over a year (and even things like automatic headlights or wipers for over 9 months). Oh, and I also bought one Tesla which came with barely 2/3 of specified horsepower, with the promise that the full power will be enabled later via software update, which 2 years later Tesla changed to "your motor is capable of it, but not in the car we sold you". You think a manual steering column is bad, imagine getting a car which still needs 50% more power to meet the spec you paid for.
I have 2 Teslas in fact. All I can say is that my experience doesn't match yours.
My pet peeve with Tesla is that they change things without informing customers. Sometimes they add things (like the steering wheel heater which was not in the car when I bought it in December but is standard now) but sometimes they remove things (like the radar on the model 3 and Y which in my opinion is a critical piece of self driving hardware).
You are lucky. I almost bought an model X last November until I started reading about the "dreaded shudder" which apparently is caused by the structure of the X itself. So I switched to the model Y, which I'll sell when the Taycan arrives.
Whether they need radar for that or not, I'm inclined to trust Karpathy. Killing radar without significant evidence that it's not a dead-end seems like something really stupid to do. He doesn't strike me as stupid.(quite the contrary). He actually has a longer video on this as part of an AI conference, super interesting stuff.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Your service loaner description troubles me a little, but hoping perhaps this is the pandemic effect, a car shortage in general? I haven't owned a Porsche in a long while, but when I did they never required anything but schedules maintenance and I always got at least a Boxter for a loaner. What you describe as far as negotiations I would expect almost any dealer will try to pull (unfortunately). Yes, that is one area Tesla has an advantage - ordering. I've negotiated countless deals for my own cars, and some for friends and family, and I know very well the feeling of wasting a few hours and wanting to take a shower afterwards. On two occasions I actually managed to negotiate price so low that the in one case the dealer canceled the deal and refunded my deposit the next day because I would not agree to pay more (surprise, they can legally do that, at least in WA state until they hand you the keys), and in the second case they tried to come after me 2 years (!) after I bought the car - in that case I told them I will happily return the car for a full refund if they want, since I still had it, but was not paying them any more money, they went away and all they've accomplished it I will never buy from them again. I knew I negotiated one hell of an un believable price in both situations by the way, but it's not my problem their sales managers couldn't do math and/or use their computers - if you're going to only negotiate a deal, be good at math and pay attention.
Absolutely agree. Tesla has a convincing presentation on why only cameras are needed - the depth perception via vision ended up much better than many expected, and their explanation why it exceeded expectations made sense. The issue is they experiment on customers and totally don't mind disabling features during some transitions. When AutoPilot 1 to AutoPilot2 transition occurred, cars with the new hardware didn't have any AutoPilot functionality (including safety featureas like emergency braking or blind spot monitoring) for a year and half IIRC. Heck, even things such as automatic headlights (on/off) took 9 months to get back (since Tesla removed the light sensor in expectation they will use the cameras) and auto-sensing wipers took over a year (since again, Tesla removed rain sensor knowing some day they will use cameras instead).
It may be the same in the States in that vehicles shipped without TPMS were held at the port and installed there, rather than shipping to the dealerships and fixing locally. If the "defect" is considered a safety issue the vehicle cannot be released from the port until corrected. But the reason I say it "may" be the same in the States is that I had heard addressing it at the port was chosen for logistical reasons rather than it being a safety-related hold.
The issues I mentioned were mostly pre-pandemic. Porsche sells many more cars than they did even 10-15 years ago. From folks that have been around longer I've also heard that Autonation buying up Barrier and others made things much much worse. I've heard stories of people getting nice 911s - I've never even seen a 911 loaner. I've seen Cayenne's and even 1-2 Panamera in all these years (never personally got one), but the most common by far seems to be Macan. By itself that's not horrible. But why bone stock 4 cyl??
). I got ~4% discount on the Taycan (custom order arriving this weekend) - which while not amazing by any stretch, is not bad either IMHO, given how hard it is to get a car during the pandemic at all. The 911 GTS was similar, and in the past I've bought BMWs and Mercedes at or near invoice. I don't even need a great deal, I just want to know I'm not being the moron who's leaving 10K on the table that he could have kept.
IIRC the Autopilot 2 switch was a bit better communicated than the removal of the radar. We ended up buying a Model X in that time period. I initially though: why not wait til you have it working? The issue is with how they are building these things: if they have a fleet learning, the learning happens faster. In my opinion, they should have offered both variants, explaining that autopilot 2 hardware, while more future proof, has near term gaps in features. So then customers can pick.
I hear you, but still better than Tesla who went from Tesla loaners to $100 Uber credit, which by the way doesn't even cover my round trip home and back to service center. Btw, Elon Musk has been touting "everyone gets a car same or better as a loaner" has never been true, even though the media will repeat this BS over and over. I've serviced my Tesla's many times over 8 years, and never got same or better for my car (Model S with Ludicrous), though my wife did once get same car but a week newer, but that was only because service wanted to see if the same problem occurs at our house with same production batch car (which it did by the way, but it's a story for another thread).
Does the battery have any warranty at all? Or can it die once a week and there is nothing you can do but pay for the next one?
Even Tesla covers the 12V battery under the initial bumper-to-bumper warranty (at least they did last I checked, a couple of years ago).I've gotten more than 4% on non-custom orders no problem, but cudos to you on the custom order deal!My anger/disappointment with the negotiation is not from failure to succeed (at least given my expectations, others with a higher bar might disagree
I might have to learn some new negotiation skills. 4% on the Taycan I want is almost $8K, so definitely worth while, and a new skill to learn. I hear you there. Over the years I've gotten to know the Tesla service staff. They were always amazing, bending over backwards to fix any issues, provide loaners, etc. I really mean it there, best service of any car I have ever own - the main reason I kept buying more Teslas knowing they are early adopter cars. The would even do things like the foreman would even drive my car to my work office at the end of the day, swap it for my loaner, and take it home to return it the next day, to save me a trip in rush traffic. Their techs would come out discuss problems I found and thank me for reliable repros. Unfortunately once Tesla become laser focused on profitability and the Model 3/Y floods came, those very same people had to give me answers I could tell they could barely get through with a straight face (such as, your computer screen is a wear item, sorry yours yellowed after less than a year). Sad really.
Everyone has wear and tear items, but a 12V battery is covered even by Tesla (at least it was last I checked, which was a couple of years ago). I once wore through my brand new 911 tires (all the way to blowout
) in under 10K miles once, I did not expect Porsche to cover it - my bad for not checking more often, I usually check tread depth every 6 months or, spring and fall. I'm hoping though that the computer screens in the Porsche are not a wear item, like in Teslas.I am already looking into a repair manual for the Taycan. I tinker with my cars, for example one to the first things I plan on doing it adding a full front+rear radar detector and laser jamming, as I did in my current car. Some of my friends think I'm completely nuts taking apart $100K+ cars within days of getting them, but as my wife puts it, I am "just crazy like that". The reason I mention it is because repair manuals usually include labor required for specific repairs, and parts, so it's easier to gauge whether or not someone is trying to gouge me. And yes, over the years I've learned the skill of negotiating even warranty work as some dealers will try to get you to pay for the work first before admitting it's covered under warranty (e.g. warped rotors, dealer will offer a resurfacing service for a fee, but when pressed, will give you new rotors under warranty). Btw, I like electric cars better than ICE cars, easier to work on yourself if needed. In Tesla's case, if you're out of warranty, it pays off (e.g. recently fixed a faulty door handle, Tesla price $800, my repair, 90 minutes of work, could have been only an hour but I swapped out internal proximity switches for $4 since I already had them, but could have just fixed the broken wire).
