The Tesla conundrum, again...

 We've gone on and on about Teslas being way too expensive. Maybe not so much any more. 

[Edit: Feb'24:There's an update (way) below.] and now:

Edit Mar'24: We Came, We Saw, They Conquered, so yeah we went to the Tesla Store.

Justin shows us a 2024 'Refreshed' Model 3

...and we REALLY liked the '24 Model 3. We like the seats, the ride, the style, the wheels, the quiet, pretty much everything about it except the price. Looked up after we got home and - roughly $42K for the absolutely base model including the 'bakes in the sun' color. And it doesn't qualify for squat in terms of Fed & State credits/rebates -except- maybe if they just happen to get the new 'in demand' unit to us in time for the Oregon rebates timeline [Apr.3rd - June.6th] and even that's not enough given what's happened with depreciation recently.

We also tried the '24 Model Y, gotta say: it's nice too and a better color. Not AS nice you understand, but still pretty darn good. ...and it qualifies for everything so it's a bunch cheaper. 

     Well, except for how Tesla deals with their end-of-quarter sales rush.  

The Tesla sales advisors there at the Salem OR Store [Justin and the crew there were really really nice BTW] were very up front and realistic that there's no way to order a car (inventory or otherwise) with the promise that you won't have to pick it up before Apr.3rd, and since Apr.2nd (or before) costs us over $7K more than Apr.3rd, we're somewhat sensitive to the date. It's great to get straight answers even if it's not what you wanted to hear. This despite their own Tesla Order Agreement that you have to sign or agree to plainly stating that you have 14 days to pick it up (page one, paragraph four 'Delivery' toward the end of tha paragraph, when delivered in PDF form). Oh well.

We can also note that it is a bad business practice to have end of the quarter (or end of month) 'big sales' pushes. It undermines trust in the business and generates unfair outcomes, both for the customers and, like having the sales folks bear the weight of failures far up the corporate ladder. Most especially including executives that benefit from those sales numbers.

Hertz update: They are raising prices on their sales EV's, pushing many above the $25K cutoff for Fed. credits. Odd that this happens just after the top management blamed for those low prices were pushed out of the company. Maybe it's all coincidence.

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Anyway, back to the original story already in progress:

Hertz bought a lot of Teslas beginning in 2021. They're scaling back some, plus they just tend to sell off their rental cars as used when they're 2-3 years and 80K miles old, just in the process of normal business. We had not really been paying attention to this until recently when it was pointed out that many of them are now low enough (under $25K) to qualify for the Federal Used EV Tax Credit of $4000.

From (obviously) the Hertz Car Sales sites across the country

Let's see, $20K minus $4K = $16K. Awesome! Well except the 80K 'hard rental miles' on them. Normally a deal breaker for must folks, except there's several differences from 'normal' expectations:

Tesla Model 3's don't generally have problems with big failures like motors/batteries until well beyond 250K mi. (yes, yes, there's lots of LOUD exceptions out there, but not so much statistically speaking) so that part isn't as big a deal as you might think.

And,
You have the remainder of the 8 year 100K mi. power-train and battery Tesla warranty PLUS Hertz adds a 12 mo. general warranty. This should get you through your initial worries about the problems it 'came with.'

They didn't limit themselves to 2021's either. A slightly more limited selection of 2022's is out there:

Searched for: 2022, low miles. "39 cars match your search"

In this example they're about $4K more money but one year newer and 20K fewer miles. Worth it? For some people. There are also examples in-between: $23K cars that are 2022 but higher miles.
Two things worth mentioning: Most of the vehicles that racked up over 60K miles in a year were out on the special weekly rental program for Uber drivers, who were incentivized to take good care of the cars. Second, Hertz does not sell the damaged, either accident or cosmetically challenged, cars through it's site. Since their 'rep' and risks associated with the 'free' warranty they include are on the line, they send the questionable cars off to auction. This doesn't mean they're perfect, but better than you would expect.

Early Teslas that spent a lot of their time on Supercharger/Fast DC chargers had somewhat higher than normal battery degradation. Is that still a thing? Well, sort of. Some of the overblown headlines have been debunked. The not unusual case of extrapolation from inadequate data ... that just happens to prove your point ;-) 
But some of it was real, although less so recently. Tesla is a data company. The things they learn are quickly sent out to update the behavior of both the cars and chargers. Add to which most of the 2022's have LFP battery packs. We've waxed rhapsodic about the benefits of Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries before, especially their long cycle life even in fast charging conditions. Some LFP units in the field have seen only 2%-3% degredation over their first 18 mo. compared with 5%-6% for the 'normal' NCA chemistries under similar conditions.
For us this easily makes the 2022's worth the additional $$'s. 

"So, you're going out to get one?"
Not so fast. There's one alternate path (Model Y below) and a couple flies/delays in the ointment.

The first of which is that none of them are in Oregon. Most that are 'near' are in California. Hundreds of them. Given that we haven't hesitated to buy outside the state (twice in WA) you'd think "Eh, no big deal." but CA is a special case. If we 'take delivery' there we're charged the full weight of state and local taxes. $2000-$2500, plus a grand in fees that we may only partially avoid since we're registering in OR.

"So there's gotta be a way around that." Well, maybe.

It's in theory possible to have the car you buy trucked up to Portland and then 'take delivery' there. That costs around $1500 and they seem resistant to this path. Maybe, we'll see. The other option might be to rent the vehicle (special rate $65/day) and drive it up from SandyEggo or wherever and then 'buy' it in Portland. We're not opposed to this approach at all. Great real-world testing followed by $1500 less/off. However this does NOT match how their process(s) work, so certainly an uphill battle.

This brings up a second reason for delay:

The Oregon EV Rebate. As many people are aware Oregon offers a $2500 EV rebate on new cars, and, that it's on hold since it ran out of funds in Apr.2023. What the public is less aware of is the 'other' $5000 credit, the Charge Ahead rebate. Granted this only applies if your gross taxable income is ~80K and under, but apparently it applies to used EV's as well. It looks like it's worth going through the pre-qualification process and we're headed in that direction once it gets cleared up as to when the program will get funding. Mar.? Apr. '24?
With that the low mile '22's are reaching reasonable prices. $24K-$4K(Fed)-$5K(state) = $16K
Regardless, it's probably worth going through that anyway, 'cause of the next part:

"Hey, wasn't the Model Y the one you were waiting for?"

                  Well, not if it costs $20K more. Duh.     ...but things are changing.

Taken from Tesla's Inventory site. Note units are 'demo' ...couple hundred miles.

However all is not as it appears. If you click on either of these you'll find:

Which is kind of rude. (Referring to the "Does not qualify for Federal Tax Credit.").  !!

However if you persist downward and click through each of the listings you'll eventually, with some boredom ...and about 4000 higher prices find one that matches expectations:
Yes, the glorious $7500 Federal  notification you were expecting above. Applied at time of delivery. Yay!

...but with prices clustered around $41.5K-$42K which when you do the math puts you around $34K. Granted that is 2X more than the used $16K example at the top.

                     And that isn't horrible.

But if you happen to qualify for state and/or local rebate(s) and are really patient, another $7500 ($2.5K+$5K) off might happen. Bringing us to more like $27K all in.

Now again granted that is roughly $10K more than the used examples above, but this is for a new, bigger, more 'campable' vehicle with all warranties.  OTOH that is 65% more. Hmmm.

Will it work out, either way? Stay tuned for later posts.

First units on their 'list,'  WITH Fed.Tax.Credit

[Edit: Late Feb.] The Oregon DEQ emailed us last week to say that pre-qualifications are now open, and while they won't say exactly when, the program is likely to go live in late March or early April "For a limited time."

ie: Odds are high that it'll be dead by early May sometime. [Edit: June 3rd.]

That said, the number of available Model 3's at Hertz has been tapering off week over week and there may be nothing (useful) left by the time April rolls around. Does this mean the dream of a 2022 Model 3 LFP for under $16K is dead? Guess we'll see. More later. 

It's Later: Hmmm, that's an interesting twist: The best stock of low(er) mileage used Model3's is in Florida. The twist is that FL has a form you can fill where you only pay the sales tax equal to the state in which you'll be registering the car. That's $0 for Oregon. There's still some fees but even parts of that are deferred to the fact that it will register elsewhere. A somewhat complicated mess of paperwork, but $2000 or more less than California and like 20,000 less miles than many of the CA cars that are under the $25K limit. Hmmm. Plane tickets are $250...

Added later: The next link in the saga.