Factory Delivery

I'm not sure I fully understand your question, but I'll give it a shot.

There is no price break on the Model S for taking delivery at the factory (but you get a tour and it's a lot of fun). Factory delivery has been an option for every Model S delivery and I expect it will be the same for the Model X, signature or production.

Most people taking delivery at the factory are California residents, however - I believe (but I'm sure I'll be corrected quickly) that California sales tax has to be paid if you take delivery in California - and then a lot of red tape has to be dealt with to get that straightened out after the fact.

bonnie said:

I'm not sure I fully understand your question, but I'll give it a shot.

There is no price break on the Model S for taking delivery at the factory (but you get a tour and it's a lot of fun). Factory delivery has been an option for every Model S delivery and I expect it will be the same for the Model X, signature or production.

Most people taking delivery at the factory are California residents, however - I believe (but I'm sure I'll be corrected quickly) that California sales tax has to be paid if you take delivery in California - and then a lot of red tape has to be dealt with to get that straightened out after the fact.

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i heard stories of people buying a cars back in the 30's and going to the factory to pick them up. I wondered what that would be like. Untell tesla started doing that again I thought I would never get the chance to see first had how the car you bought is being made. its really ashame that more car companies are not doing this. granted its a big insurance nightmare but I did walk through a hershey's chocolate here in CA when i was 12 years old. I thought it was the best thing ever.

primetime said:

Thank you Bonnie, regarding the pricing for example Saab, BMW and a few others would offer factory pickup and the base price of the car was about 10% cheaper, you could drive it around Europe then drop it off at a port of your choice and they would ship it to the states for you. Would be fun to drive from California to Miami. Something to explore for the future I guess. Thanks again.

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I believe that if you do accept delivery of a non-US built vehicle, and drive it around a bit, then the vehicle becomes 'used' and when imported to the US there is some kind of tax/price advantage to the buyer. Maybe someone who has done this (e.g. with Volvo) might be able to comment....

bonnie said:

Most people taking delivery at the factory are California residents, however - I believe (but I'm sure I'll be corrected quickly) that California sales tax has to be paid if you take delivery in California - and then a lot of red tape has to be dealt with to get that straightened out after the fact.

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That's what I've heard, and I don't think there's any way to get that money back. Best case, you don't have to pay sales tax again in your home state. California seems willing to make a lot of concessions to get the gigafactory. Maybe Tesla should try to get the sales tax issue fixed as part of the negotiation.

bonnie said:

I'm not sure I fully understand your question, but I'll give it a shot.

There is no price break on the Model S for taking delivery at the factory (but you get a tour and it's a lot of fun). Factory delivery has been an option for every Model S delivery and I expect it will be the same for the Model X, signature or production.

Most people taking delivery at the factory are California residents, however - I believe (but I'm sure I'll be corrected quickly) that California sales tax has to be paid if you take delivery in California - and then a lot of red tape has to be dealt with to get that straightened out after the fact.

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Well if that is true there goes my idea of flying out there and driving home my Model 3.

JPP said:

I believe that if you do accept delivery of a non-US built vehicle, and drive it around a bit, then the vehicle becomes 'used' and when imported to the US there is some kind of tax/price advantage to the buyer. Maybe someone who has done this (e.g. with Volvo) might be able to comment....

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Generally, the savings come from the elimination of the incentive and other payments to the US dealers based on the number of cars they sell. That can come to 10-15% of the cost of the car: Why is BMW European Delivery Cheaper than US Delivery?

bonnie said:

Most people taking delivery at the factory are California residents, however - I believe (but I'm sure I'll be corrected quickly) that California sales tax has to be paid if you take delivery in California - and then a lot of red tape has to be dealt with to get that straightened out after the fact.

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When I looked into this for my S delivery, I was told that if I drove straight to the border and left California, then I would not have to pay the California sales tax; I think they would give me something like 24 hours to leave the state. I thought this was pretty stupid for the state of California. If they gave me a week or two, I would probably visit places like Napa and spend extra money in California before I left. WIth the Supercharger highway, California really should consider some special rules for purchases of new cars made in California.

We did Euro Delivery ED on a BMW 2 years ago. Great experience and saved about 12% from sticker.

Would love to pickup our X at the factory, drive around Cali for 5 days and then head back to the Atl via the fabulous SuperCharger network. I would not pay CA tax to do so.

markb1 said:

That's what I've heard, and I don't think there's any way to get that money back. Best case, you don't have to pay sales tax again in your home state. California seems willing to make a lot of concessions to get the gigafactory. Maybe Tesla should try to get the sales tax issue fixed as part of the negotiation.

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This!

This sales tax policy has bothered me so much, I even wrote the California tax authority, and pointing out how their sales tax policy is effectively a "no tourism" policy. They have this wonderful growing / thriving business in California. People want to take delivery at the factory, tour the factory, and then drive their car back home. They could be bringing in a nice steady stream of high income families for long driving vacations, with all of those vacations starting in California. Which probably means visiting California vacation destinations.

And their tax policy turns into a roughly $8k incremental expense. Right - that's not going to happen. It's just foolishness.

Seems like this is in California's best interests to change. Set it up as a 30 day Manufacturer issued temp tag, that can only be issues to cars being delivered at the manufacturer's premises. The rest of the tax situation stays the same (I don't understand the rest of those politics, so this is at least partly an attempt to avoid all of that mess). Now we can get a 30 day temp tag in California, without the sales/use tax hit, drive our car home, and register it at home and pay our local sales/use tax (admittedly - 0% in OR), and all is well with the world. And California gets access to those tourism dollars that would be spent on the drive home.

Sure does seem obvious, eh?

Cottonwood said:

When I looked into this for my S delivery, I was told that if I drove straight to the border and left California, then I would not have to pay the California sales tax; I think they would give me something like 24 hours to leave the state. I thought this was pretty stupid for the state of California. If they gave me a week or two, I would probably visit places like Napa and spend extra money in California before I left. WIth the Supercharger highway, California really should consider some special rules for purchases of new cars made in California.

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When I looked into this, it appears that the nature of the requirements could result in even stopping for dinner / food being viewed as "tourism", and result in Use Tax being owed. It was this lack of clarity that led me to conclude that the risk was simply too great.

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fengshui said:

Generally, the savings come from the elimination of the incentive and other payments to the US dealers based on the number of cars they sell. That can come to 10-15% of the cost of the car: Why is BMW European Delivery Cheaper than US Delivery?

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I followed your link fenshui, and that led me to: http://www.bmwblog.com/2014/06/16/bmw-european-delivery-one-unique-ways-buy-car/

Now THAT is an experience I'd like to see Tesla create for us here in the States. I think if they do that - call it "California Delivery" (CD for short) - and put some energy into it, we'll see people flying over from Europe and Asia for the experience, and then shipping their vehicles back home. I know I'd go for that experience, if I didn't also have to pay California Use Tax.

Bet if you picked up your car at the factory, and paid cash for all your tourist and travel expenses, the sales tax would not become an issue.

Nobody keep track of when people enter and leave adjacent states.

Tesla keeps track of supercharge usage, but believe that is for internal use only.

I guess I could just do the reverse trip and drive to Fremont for the tour.

I was originally planning to pick up my MS in California, but scrapped the plan due to this tax rule. I am thinking though how to make it work for the next year with the Model X. I was wondering if this California tax rule can be by-passed by asking Tesla to deliver car to a neighboring state, say Nevada or Oregon. If these states do not have a similar sales tax rule, one can fly to say, Las Vegas or Portland, pick car there, tour California, and then drive car back home.

Does anybody have information on whether Oregon and Nevada have a rule that will require anybody picking car there pay state sales tax?

vgrinshpun said:

I was originally planning to pick up my MS in California, but scrapped the plan due to this tax rule. I am thinking though how to make it work for the next year with the Model X. I was wondering if this California tax rule can be by-passed by asking Tesla to deliver car to a neighboring state, say Nevada or Oregon. If these states do not have a similar sales tax rule, one can fly to say, Las Vegas or Portland, pick car there, tour California, and then drive car back home.

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You will probably have to pay sales tax in whatever state you take delivery. Fortunately, Oregon doesn't have sales tax.

When you take your car home, you will likely have to pay use tax. I know that when you import a new (or relatively new) car into California, you have to pay use tax that's equivalent to California sales tax minus the sales tax you already paid out of state. I assume other states do it similarly. I see that PA has sales tax of 6-8%. California's base sales tax is 7.5%, and in Fremont, with local taxes added in, is 9%. I'm not sure which of these rates you would pay if you took delivery at the factory. (I paid San Diego sales tax for my factory delivery, not Fremont sales tax.)

If PA only makes you pay use tax on the difference, and you only paid 7.5% in California, you might not be any worse off for taking delivery in California.

markb1 said:

You will probably have to pay sales tax in whatever state you take delivery. Fortunately, Oregon doesn't have sales tax.

When you take your car home, you will likely have to pay use tax. I know that when you import a new (or relatively new) car into California, you have to pay use tax that's equivalent to California sales tax minus the sales tax you already paid out of state. I assume other states do it similarly. I see that PA has sales tax of 6-8%. California's base sales tax is 7.5%, and in Fremont, with local taxes added in, is 9%. I'm not sure which of these rates you would pay if you took delivery at the factory. (I paid San Diego sales tax for my factory delivery, not Fremont sales tax.)

If PA only makes you pay use tax on the difference, and you only paid 7.5% in California, you might not be any worse off for taking delivery in California.

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Looks like Minnesota is the same way. Minnesota's rate is 6.5% though so it might not make financial sense for me.

Vehicles purchased in another state.
Minnesota allows credit for state sales tax required to be paid to another state. However, if the other state’s tax rate is lower, you owe the difference in rates to Minnesota.

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