Tesla offering insane perks as sales dry up
108 comments
·March 9, 2025tylerrobinson
refurb
I was expecting “insane”.
morkalork
The insane part where somehow, magically, one Tesla dealership managed to make 1,200 sales in a single day and claim government credits from it: https://motorillustrated.com/suspicious-tesla-sales-surge-tr...
refurb
That seems like “lazy sales people batched a ton of sales and entered them all on the same date” kind of thing.
Especially since the rebate goes to the car owner, not Tesla.
“Enroll your dealership in the iZEV Program to offer your customers incentives for the purchase of ZEVs, learn how to apply the incentive at the point of sale or lease”
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/transport/zero-emission-ve...
impostervt
I recently got a letter from the bank that owns my tesla loan, informing me that I can buy the car at the end of the loan. Previously that wasn't an option. Plus, it was for $28k (at the end of a 3 year loan).
Got another letter trying to get me to buy a new 3 with 0% interest for 60 months.
They're definitely under pressure.
seanmcdirmid
Do you mean lease?
nothercastle
Yeah seems like your have a lease. You definitely want to return that lemon. Even if you love it return and re-buy for cheaper.
hnburnsy
Ford Mach E incentives...
https://www.edmunds.com/ford/mustang-mach-e/2025/deals/
$1,000 Complimentary Charging Offer - Expires 04/01/2025
$1,000 Conquest Offer - Expires 04/01/2025
$1,000 Loyalty Offer - Expires 04/01/2025
$500 First Responder Offer - Expires 01/06/2026
$750 Student or College Grad Offer - Expires 01/06/2026
$500 Military Offer - Expires 01/06/2026
Special APR - Expires 04/01/2025
$7,500 Lease Bonus - Expires 04/01/2025
Special APR - Expires 04/01/2025
Alternative APR - Expires 04/01/2025
$100 Third Party EV Charger Offer - Expires 07/01/2025
$250 Utility EV Charger Offer - Expires 01/01/20261vuio0pswjnm7
Cybertruck 1.99% interest rate
"The widely panned [Cybertruck] vehicle is a flop, and Tesla is reckoning with existing stock it simply can't sell. To help entice buyers, Tesla is offering a 1.99 percent interest rate on new Cybertruck orders financed through Tesla."
Model_3 0.00% interest rate
"If you're willing to apply for a $7,500 federal tax credit on a new Model 3, Tesla is offering zero percent loans for "well qualified" buyers."
Model_3 0.99% interest rate
"If you're not interested in that tax break, you can still get a 0.99 percent loan if you're "well qualified," which typically means a credit score of 700 or better."
"Tesla sales are also down 76 percent in Germany, 75 percent in Spain, 72 percent in Australia, and 45 percent in Europe as a whole. In the U.S., reports peg Tesla's sales decline at 11.6 percent year over year."
MarkMarine
Sold my Tesla model 3 performance about a year ago, and it wasn’t because of politics. Tesla continuously deployed breaking changes to my car without my permission. Autopilot, parking sensors, rain sensing wipers that just became absolute garbage… every new update was an exciting journey through the features of my car that used to work and now didn’t. Couple that with depreciation of a 68,000$ car to 19,000$ in two years time, I will never buy another Tesla. They have no long term thinking, no thoughts about existing customers, they will screw you over to make quarterly sales targets.
gnatman
Yikes. Why are they deprecating those features?
MarkMarine
The broken them. I had a model 3 with ultra sonic parking sensors and radar, they said the cameras alone were enough and started rolling out auto pilot and self park and such to only depend on cameras because of parts shortages during Covid.
The wipers are what really stuck in my craw. Because the car had great rain sensing wipers before, there was no button to turn them on or adjust the speed. It was buried in touch screen menus. Then during some autopilot update they ruined the rain sense, so you’re 3 menus deep on a touch screen while it’s raining (no autopilot, cause rain) to keep adjusting it.
They basically gave up trying to fix it and made the setting easier to access, popping up when you hit the windshield wash button on the stalk.
csa
> Why are they deprecating those features?
I guess deprecation is in the eye of the beholder.
I have a model y, probably got mostly the same updates, and I have found that the features seem improved.
The exception might be FSD, for which I think v12.5 was an experiment of questionable value that quickly became a non-issue with v13. I don’t have FSD, so I’m not sure.
littlestymaar
Nobody knows why apps makers change the UI every years either…
mentalfist
Companies update their UI to stay modern, improve usability, align with new design trends, enhance performance, and differentiate from competitors. It also helps keep users engaged, address feedback, and integrate new features more seamlessly.
In theory at least.
jmclnx
Unless he sells the company, I doubt it will survive. I wonder when layoffs will start ? That will really make for very interesting headlines.
chasil
If Tesla were to suddenly score a large government contract, that could keep them afloat.
The Postal Service, for example?
Any agency facing DOGE cuts would be motivated to buy Tesla.
jmclnx
This I would not mind seeing, EVs are perfect for Postal Use. But that ship has sailed because the current postmaster general insisted on Fossil Fuel vehicles and many are already in service.
Note, as a kid half my family worked for USPS, so a few times in summer I rode with them in the tiny 'jeeps' for mail delivery. In 1 day these vehicles probably travel less then 30 miles (50km).
soupfordummies
I don't know if you saw this last year but looks like they're rolling out about 45k of the "duck" trucks:
https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2024/1030-...
It does note "another 21,000 commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) battery electric vehicles" though, so that could be the opening for Tesla...
amriksohata
this is so misleading, ev sales worldwide have been stagnant and their share price just normalised back to pre election. more chinese competition and also the Y model is being replaced with a newer face so they are lowering prices to remove old stock.
AlecSchueler
How are you defining stagnant here, and do you differentiate that from negative growth? I searched for whatever market trends I could find. It's true that there's globally more Chinese competition but no one's sales looked "stagnant" and the best obvious declines in Tesla sales especially in Europe since the Nazi salutes seem to be extreme outliers.
AlecSchueler
s/best/recent/
otterley
I will buy a Tesla as soon as Elon relinquishes control over the company and resigns from its Board.
Not bloody likely to happen, but a person can dream.
eric-hu
As long as you're dreaming, perhaps you should also include giving up all his equity in the company. He'd still profit handsomely off someone else running the company well with over 12% of shares.
otterley
I'm not going to go that far. He can invest in whatever he wants; if he owns a non-controlling amount of Amazon or Home Depot shares, I'm not going to stop shopping there.
d1str0
I stopped shopping at Home Depot because their profits are donated to super pacs I don’t agree with.
soramimo
Well, I'd say it depends on what you are trying to accomplish.
If you don't agree with his political stance and and want to loosen his outsized influence on US democracy (e.g. by pouring hundreds of millions in political campaigns, silencing intra-GOP opposition by threatening to primary them with his money, using Twitter to push the fringe talking points of the day), then I would argue your goal should be reducing his net worth by refusing to buy from companies he's invested in.
If on the other hand, you're mostly criticizing that the quality of Tesla's cars suffers because the company doesn't get his full attention, it's a different story and your stance makes sense.
littlestymaar
Amazon isn't a great example though as Jeff “algorithmically controlling workers body” Bezos is only marginally less evil than Musk.
geodel
Well, I was thinking other way round. When Tesla stock price sky rocketed after inauguration, I thought it would be dumped to PE firms or some other chump at immense profit to Musk. Tesla anyway does not fit into his political agenda, prices are too volatile in last few years and sales going down even before his latest shenanigans.
tootie
Unlikely as it seems, does he actually run the company anymore? He's running a bunch of other companies and apparently the federal government. I wonder when is the last time he attended a Tesla meeting. He really should hand the reins. But even so, he's going to the biggest shareholder. Jeff Bezos relinquished Amazon, but he's still executive chair and the biggest stock holder so people still the company his.
Gud
Why would you? There are other car manufacturers with better cars available.
rayiner
[flagged]
xnx
What's "liberal" about Toyota?
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF
It’s the EV part.
At least, that seems more likely than Toyota.
rayiner
A Toyota Prius is like the archetypal liberal mobile.
otterley
What's nutty about it?
gaganyaan
How can you possibly like someone throwing around literal Nazi salutes? Are you unaware of that?
chneu
Believe it or not, tons of people don't care about that. It's something that I have to constantly remind myself of.
They either agree with it, don't care, or it isn't important enough.
It's good when people openly admit to it because then an actual conversation can take place. When people make up dumb reasons or just won't say the truth it leads to pointless discussion.
rayiner
[flagged]
dzhiurgis
I think everyone are very aware of far left media trying to paint musk as nazi. It seems it finally worked.
maxwellprice265
[dead]
bsima
insane that people actually let elon’s government work influence their car buying decisions
davesmylie
Why wouldn't you - the average person has few ways to influence big players and voting with their dollar is by far the most effective.
I wanted a Tesla for years. I wouldnt consider buying one now.
bsima
it’s the only car i’ll buy tbh, i’ve got a model Y
davidcbc
Even if he wasn't morally reprehensible, the Cybertruck is probably the ugliest and worst built car of all time and the rest of the lineup has a history of major quality issues as well. Meanwhile, the competition has majorly caught up with the lead Tesla blew. In 2025 a Tesla isn't worth buying over any number of other EVs
potato3732842
Perhaps, but the oddly overbuilt stainless body with what's basically an M3 drivetrain is potentially a decent vehicle for someone who really wants a M3 but is shopping for $5k beater trucks because he knows he's gonna beat the crap out of whatever he gets
seabird
It's an overbuilt stainless body and underbuilt aluminum frame that is not capable of what a $5000 beater truck is. It's a bad truck.
stopshills
It's about the only way to vote against him, since he's an unelected official.
bsima
?? doge was explicitly part of trump’s campaign, a vote for trump was a vote for elon and doge
Sabinus
One could argue that Elon and Tesla's reputation as the first to seriously tackle electrifying the transport system to deal with climate change got them a lot of goodwill that made people overlook the issues with the cars.
Now the reputation is going the other side of neutral.
nine_zeros
> insane that people actually let elon’s government work influence their car buying decisions
Classic business owner fantasy:
Owner: I am going to to stiff you and make your life hell.
Customer: I don't care please let me buy your stuff at over-inflated prices. And keep stiffing me while I suffer because of you.
lumost
We are in a rather peculiar situation in US history where a party representing roughly 48% of the population has absolute control over all branches of government. The party representing the other 48% has no authority, and often believes the decisions of the first party to be incompatible with a functioning society.
It’s surprising that TSLA boycotts are the only disruptive protest happening.
bsima
huh that’s a good point
surgical_fire
That's only on top of Teslas being somewhat shitty cars, and on top of competitor brands offering good EVs.
bsima
i love my model Y, it drives me everywhere. only car i’ll buy from now on
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ein0p
As someone in the market for a Cybertruck, this doesn't look like desperation to me. These are fairly standard perks. Now a low APR _and_ free FSD, that'd be a serious incentive. That's what I'm waiting for.
baskinator
I've been shopping Ford Mavericks and they have no incentives other than a 3 year lease. They are hot because they are filling a market niche that is in-demand. Incentives are priced accordingly.
Low demand, high incentives. High demand, low incentives.
jonstewart
There's speculation that Ford doesn't make enough Mavericks because they don't want to erode F150 sales. The Maverick is a sweet little truck.
nothercastle
The maverick cuts into their f150 sales and they under priced it initially. They have been raising prices steadily and they the trucks still sell out
jsight
They also have annual sales of ~140k globally. The Y is closer to 1.2M.
Even in the US, the Y sells ~2x as many as Maverick.
surgical_fire
Something tells me that the model Y wi be selling dramatically less in the coming years.
baskinator
Ford can't make them fast enough, apparently
null
bdangubic
wait a bit more, it’ll be 0%, free FSD and free supercharging and under $80k
s1artibartfast
I would snap up a Model Y if it had V2X charging. I can only imagine Tesla is worried about undercutting their powerwall business.
Powerwall gives you 13 kwh for $10K. A model Y is 60kwh for $30k
jsight
CT has v2x. I hope it comes to the other cars eventually.
otterley
Why do you want one?
nothercastle
I think some people really love the hate it brings. It’s like driving around in a giant dumpster with a hate symbol on it except it won’t get you cancelled and fired from your job.
chneu
100% the only reason anyone would buy a cyber truck is ego and/or attention.
They're bad at everything you'd want a truck for. They're impractical and have high upkeep costs.
jonstewart
Free graffiti comes standard in 2025.
courseofaction
Serious question: do you expect to have to field questions about buying a car from Musk post-seig heil and DOGE?
csa
> Serious question: do you expect to have to field questions about buying a car from Musk post-seig heil and DOGE?
I live in a liberal part of California.
No one has said anything to me about driving a Tesla, and I doubt anyone will.
I know a few folks who have ruled out a tesla because of Elon, but the realize that a car and the ecology around it is more than its CEO (or whatever he is).
I know many more folks who have bought a new one.
null
ein0p
I support cutting government waste. So do the majority of Americans, BTW. And no one with any folds on their brain believes Musk is a "Nazi".
bdangubic
anyone that supports cutting government waste and has an ounce brain would be smart to realize that that what government people in charge do not give a flying fuck about cutting government waste - do better
otterley
I too support cutting government waste, provided it's done right. The problem is that currently it's being done with all the grace of a hippo in ice skates. A good manager does things methodically, not spastically. If he were advising well, we wouldn't have to keep calling important people back to work.
You also don't have to believe Musk is an actual Nazi to believe he should be careful in how he presents himself. We don't make these sorts of gestures precisely because people might think you are one. If you don't believe me, make a trip to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem and try it yourself, and see whether you make it out without injuries. (And please have someone film you.)
And the guy has more than enough money to hire a speaking coach. He probably ought to.
(The perks are free charging and low interest rates on car loans)