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The P85 is now obsolete.

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Yep, thats right. With all the hoorah about the P85D, Musk and the Tesla team quietly retired the P85 today. No longer will cars be built with a P85 badge, but rather a P85+ with dual motors, which is a P85D now. The real wheel drive performance car is gone, obsoleted, and retired.

Glad I leased my P85. I figured technology advances with a car manufacturer that just started a couple years ago building the Model S would come out with something bigger and better and cause a crash in depreciation.

All us RWD P85 people now drive what will be referred to as the "Old P85"

I am kind of bummed, but it is expected. Just surprised that the P85 itself was simply retired which I am sure no one will want in a year down the road when people are selling their P85D's.. so the resale market just softened more than a wet noodle for the old "performance" model.
 
I understand. That's why when I buy a vehicle vs. lease, it is all about how long I will keep it. As you say if you want to upgrade, leasing is great. On the other hand, I tend to keep my vehicles for many years. I get the best there is at the time and enjoy what I bought.
I have a 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee Hemi. Hot vehicle and still enjoy driving it. But there is now the "Summit' version and other body styles. But its okay. I will still enjoy my P85+ years from now as it was the hottest Tesla at the time. And will still be hot then. I can also add all the aftermarket stuff I want and know I'll get my money's worth.
At this point my vehicles are worth more to me than someone else. That's okay.
 
I have the feeling that the S was always intended to be AWD. Maybe the full drive train just wasn't ready in time. In any case I now have a classic collectors item!

Same thing happened when I bought my 2006 Kawasaki KXF450. It had a 4 speed gearbox. In 2007 they released the 5 speed gearbox. When it came to sell it 4 years later, the 2006's were selling at pretty much half the resale value of a 2007 because no one wanted the 4 speed when they could buy the used 5 speed. So the 4 speed guys had to take big hits to offload them. Sucked. This is the same thing... double whammy really, No autopilot hardware and RWD P85 motor. The old Model S performance model.

I now know why my $108K P85 had a residual value after 3 years of $46,500 with $18,500 down on lease signing (15K/yr lease). They were expecting some pretty steep depreciation apparently- I thought I would be able to score a deal and buy it outright after the lease was up for $46.5K, now I am glad I leased because theres a good chance it will be worth less than $45K by then at the rate of these changes.
 
Glass half full here:

I don't think it's all bad. Some people may not be in the market for AWD. And, when presented with the option of the classic P85 or S85 with auto pilot, I don't think it's a slam dunk win for auto pilot.
 
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New, the P85D costs significantly more than the P85 did, by about $15,000. The gap in price between a new P85D and a used P85 will be even greater... potentially by more than $30,000. Totally different price range.

I think this makes a used P85 a much more attractive option to someone looking for a Performance Model S, who would otherwise be making a decision between a used P85 vs a new one.
 
I don't think the P85 being discontinued is necessarily a bad thing, esp. given the MSRP gap as mentioned before. What will test resale values much more is when Tesla inevitably releases a 100+kWh pack.
 
Interesting, they've also dropped the dual-motor 60kWh... they only had that for, what, a month? I'm guessing it wasn't a big seller.

Anyone buying a 60 (myself included) is most likely really stretching financially to buy the car. As a result, the uptake rate on an expensive option like AWD would not be very high. I would imagine most cars without the tech package are also 60's, for this reason. I know that if my plans to buy an inventory car fail (there have not been any "cheap" 60's in inventory since I put down my deposit) my plan is to buy a bone stripped new 60 at the end of my Volt lease, as it would be the only way to own a Tesla and not break the bank.
 
Anyone buying a 60 (myself included) is most likely really stretching financially to buy the car. As a result, the uptake rate on an expensive option like AWD would not be very high. I would imagine most cars without the tech package are also 60's, for this reason. I know that if my plans to buy an inventory car fail (there have not been any "cheap" 60's in inventory since I put down my deposit) my plan is to buy a bone stripped new 60 at the end of my Volt lease, as it would be the only way to own a Tesla and not break the bank.

This was all in the Fiscal Quarter financial results call yesterday. Tesla needs to ramp up future production by not offering so many combinations. So they are keeping the lowest, the highest and allowing for variation in the S85 model. Sounds logical with the model x coming down the pike.
 
One possibility that I have been thinking about is that the RWD P85 series motor was being mechanically taken to the limit and that is why drivetrains have had to be replaced for milling sounds and what not. With the non-P 85 this is not an issue and with all dual motor cars the mechanical demands on any one motor are less (both for regen and accel) so we are unlikely to see lots of motor replacements in the future.

Is this a silly rationale or does anyone here think this might make a little sense?
 
Including sales tax differential, my p85 was almost 30k less than the new D configured similarly. Yes awd and sensors great, but I think early P should have active resale market. I could sell at 66% of my net purchase price and buyer would pay about 50% of new D price.

I'm renaming 85V. For value.
 
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Yep, thats right. With all the hoorah about the P85D, Musk and the Tesla team quietly retired the P85 today. No longer will cars be built with a P85 badge, but rather a P85+ with dual motors, which is a P85D now. The real wheel drive performance car is gone, obsoleted, and retired.

Glad I leased my P85. I figured technology advances with a car manufacturer that just started a couple years ago building the Model S would come out with something bigger and better and cause a crash in depreciation.

All us RWD P85 people now drive what will be referred to as the "Old P85"

I am kind of bummed, but it is expected. Just surprised that the P85 itself was simply retired which I am sure no one will want in a year down the road when people are selling their P85D's.. so the resale market just softened more than a wet noodle for the old "performance" model.

Your P85 is not any slower than it was a couple days ago. I don't think the resale would be affected, because now there's currently nothing in the price slot where the P85 used to be. There's a significant price gap between S85 and P85D.

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This was all in the Fiscal Quarter financial results call yesterday. Tesla needs to ramp up future production by not offering so many combinations. So they are keeping the lowest, the highest and allowing for variation in the S85 model. Sounds logical with the model x coming down the pike.

I wonder if they will still be delivering previous orders of the 60D. Whoever ordered a 60D with green paint and black colored roof probably will have a one-of-a-kind model. :)
 
Yep, thats right. With all the hoorah about the P85D, Musk and the Tesla team quietly retired the P85 today. No longer will cars be built with a P85 badge, but rather a P85+ with dual motors, which is a P85D now. The real wheel drive performance car is gone, obsoleted, and retired.

Glad I leased my P85. I figured technology advances with a car manufacturer that just started a couple years ago building the Model S would come out with something bigger and better and cause a crash in depreciation.

All us RWD P85 people now drive what will be referred to as the "Old P85"

I am kind of bummed, but it is expected. Just surprised that the P85 itself was simply retired which I am sure no one will want in a year down the road when people are selling their P85D's.. so the resale market just softened more than a wet noodle for the old "performance" model.

Totally disagree. In fact, I think the resale value of P85 and P85+ just went up a tad, precisely because there is no comparable model that one can buy new. Not everyone wants/needs dual motors for either the performance (and price!) or the AWD handling. I don't! I'm *extremely* happy with my P85+ I got as an inventory car at less than the price of a new P85. None of that changes just because TM retired the P85. And in real snowy/icy weather, I have an ICE I can drive through, as even if I had an AWD MS, I wouldn't take it out in the snow because of all the salt, dirt, ice, and really bad drivers out there in weather like that. If I'm going to have an accident in the snow/ice, I'd rather it be in the ICE than the MS.

Also, since there's no "New P85", why would the existing fleet of P85s be called the "Old P85"??

I'm glad I bought my P85+. I plan to own and drive it for many years to come. It's still a total kick-in-the-pants to drive. And I don't have a perpetual lease payment (incl interest) either, just to keep the option to upgrade in the future which would just reset the lease payment clock.

Will I trade up in the future? Sure, when there's a bigger/better battery and/or lots of other MS advancements, but I don't see that happening for about 5 years. And I'll still have the Tesla smile during all of those 5 years.

My cup runneth over.

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One possibility that I have been thinking about is that the RWD P85 series motor was being mechanically taken to the limit and that is why drivetrains have had to be replaced for milling sounds and what not.

That's a pretty small number of cars with that problem...and those people have been more vocal than the thousands of people without any problems. I drive the crap out of my P85+ and have never had any drivetrain issues. And IIRC, the milling sounds and other problems with the early motors wasn't due to them being taken to their mechanical limits. In fact, IIRC, the inverter is the limiting factor, and there's still more headroom for the motor to produce even more power than the P85 or P85+ currently allow.
 
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One possibility that I have been thinking about is that the RWD P85 series motor was being mechanically taken to the limit and that is why drivetrains have had to be replaced for milling sounds and what not. With the non-P 85 this is not an issue and with all dual motor cars the mechanical demands on any one motor are less (both for regen and accel) so we are unlikely to see lots of motor replacements in the future.

Is this a silly rationale or does anyone here think this might make a little sense?

Not silly, but I think the simpler answer is that Tesla can make more money by cutting back on less popular and/or lower-margin options.