I thought releasing a car in 2012 would make is a 2013 model year. That's the way it works for every other car manufacturer. I'm not sure Tesla actually gives their cars model years, but 2013 is probably what it's going to get called by insurance companies, DMV, etc.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
I thought releasing a car in 2012 would make is a 2013 model year. That's the way it works for every other car manufacturer. I'm not sure Tesla actually gives their cars model years, but 2013 is probably what it's going to get called by insurance companies, DMV, etc.
I thought it's what the VIN # said, and we've been seeing the letter for 2012 not 2013.
I think what you're referring to is essentially "version inflation" for automobiles, that is an unsurprising result of competitive marketing.
Model year - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tesla is not every other car Company !!!!!
People just don't really get it yet - there may be other car companies that are exclusive to some people but if you walk into Menlo looking grungy and unshaven and they will still talk to you at Tesla
A car is built in 2012 it is a. . . 2012 not a 2013 to try and up sell it or something or make it feel way newer
Lane drift & features like that audi & others have are pointless IMO(blind spot det, actually could be nice )...just pay freaking Attention when u drive!!
Yep, I acknowledged that. I thought Tesla largely avoided the problem of conflicting with the industry standard model years by giving their cars version numbers, instead. (1.0, 2.0, etc.)
I hadn't considered that. There must be a photo around here somewhere of a production VIN, but I haven't found it, yet.
Edit: Found it: Decoding Tesla Model S VINs
Looks like C=2012, so I was wrong.
Elon has stated (and it has been discussed) that if the car is made in 2012, it's a 2012. The cars will not be denoted by model year, but by version. So I take that to mean, in 2013 you could have both a Model S 1.0 and 1.5, how how would saying "I have a 2013 Model S" help? Saying I have a "Model S 1.5" would be more helpful.
Having a version number is a lot more informative than simply a model year, IMO. After all, when buying used car it's more about features, mileage and overall condition. Moreover, having the model year be when the car was actually made provides the used car buyer with much more accurate information. For instance, my 2005 Audi TT was actually made in August 2004.
I believe that North America is the only place where the model year is ahead of the real year. In most places the year of the car is the year that it went into service. So if you took delivery of your car in October 2003 and the model changed in August 2003, it would still be a 2003--even though it was the new model. Actually, I'm surprised that someone isn't selling a 2014 by now (as if the model year made it newer).
TM has stated (sorry, no ref, but clear memory!) that models will be "dated" by year of manufacture, period. If it came off the line in 2012, it's a 2012 model. Etc.
W8MM
R1.5 #325 + Mdl S #01380
Not to be snippy, but our "2008" Roadster was produced in 2009. Tesla is, of course, allowed to improve on, or change their collective mind about, this sort of thing.
I can't decide if going against the prevailing idiom of the "next" year starting in August of the previous year is good, or not. Resale values are often tied to model year and I'm not sure how informed the general public is about non-standard poses on such things.
Last edited:
I suspect it will be many years before the general public starts purchasing used Teslas. That will happen after the GenIII comes out. Those who purchase a used Roadster or Model S will have done some research so the model year difference won't concern them.
The one thing that the model year model does is prevent the situation where you have a model change during the year. In countries that use the in-service or build date as the year of the car there can be some confusion. For example, a 2003 Prius might be the old design (2001-2003 in the U.S.) or the newer design (2004-2009 in the U.S.). That makes it harder for the buyer to determine which car it is without seeing a picture.
On the other hand if car companies used version numbers, then there would be no confusion and the year would be mostly irrelevant . A 2.0 Roadster is a 2.0 Roadster regardless of when it was shipped. The only problem is the difficulty of determining the car's version number because the Roadsters aren't clearly marked.
This has been discussed at length various times. Cars will be denoted by their version number (1.0, 1.5, 2.0 etc). The model year won't matter. Tesla is likely to iterate quickly with their developments, slipping new features into production as time goes on.
What if Tesla put out Model S 1.3 in Jan 2013, then a 1.5 in July, then made some more minor tweaks and released 1.7 in December? An extreme example yes, but people looking for the newest or a certain feature set would be better suited looking for the model number than the model year in that case (which would be all 2013 with Tesla, or with the traditional automakers could be 2013 and 2014 -- what about the third revision?).
*edit* Jerry beat me to it, but I would like to comment on this:
Neither would the year be either (on a Roadster or any other traditional car).
In a traditional car, the model year is in the title of the vehicle (assuming U.S. or Canada) so there is little confusion.
What I would like to see is the car's name changed. Instead of Roadster, the names would be: Roadster 1.0, Roadster 2.0, etc. Of course, that wouldn't work in the case of a field upgrade but for those cases there could be a sticker applied to the car. I've had computers where after certain upgrades were done a sticker was applied showing that the computer was now Octane III rather than Octane II.
I do like the number scheme better than the model year scheme.
I've said before, I would love to see it go like: "Model S", "Model S4" etc. Then you'd refer to it as The S2 or the S4 etc.
CyberDutchie
Active Member
gg_got_a_tesla
Model S: VIN 65513, Model 3: VIN 1913
The jury's still out on that one. What will they call the 4th edition next year?! The Really New iPad?!
I like S2, S3 and so on too. They could reflect fundamental changes to the car (and not necessarily in sequential years) while software-only updates can always be made to existing cars. BMW capture this in their chassis designation (E90 and such) for atleast the fanboys.
"If you have a receipt, it's obsolete."
Note that this applies to stuff ordered online that hasn't even arrived yet.
I guess they've got a couple of cycles before they have a problem:
- Newer iPad
- Newest iPad; then
- New[SUP]2 [/SUP]iPad
- New[SUP]3[/SUP] iPad
Similar threads
