So I have interesting information I need to share with everyone! So I got my VIN this morning and I immediately went to my local Tesla SC in Owings Mills because I needed to order 4 TPMS sensors for my winter Gemini rims (they wouldn’t allow me to order the sensors until I got my VIN—they ordered them for me). While I was there I talked to my sales advisor and asked him about my low number VIN (it’s a 76,XXX). He immediately went into the system to see when my vehicle was “born” and it was yesterday, December 11th at 14:54:56. He was also able to see exactly where my vehicle was at on a map, and it was still in the middle of the lot at Fremont (he showed me all of this, so I know it’s in fact real), as well as the odometer and it has 2.5 miles on it. My estimated delivery now says December 22nd-28th, and I leave for NY at the latest on the 24th. If the vehicle shows up and they schedule delivery on the 24th, then I’ll take delivery then drive it to NY—hopefully it shows up on the 22nd though. If it shows up AFTER the 24th, they said they could work something up and I could have a trusted person take delivery on my behalf, but they’d have to do the inspection for me—but no biggie because we could FaceTime together and go through the vehicle together. My trusted person is my next door neighbor who is more into cars than me, and literally goes to a dealership EVERY WEEKEND and drives cars just for the hell of it. So yeah,I’d trust him to have a checklist and sign on my behalf with me on FaceTime. So, that part is solved if need be.
What I want to say about the VIN process is this; the way it works is a VIN is assigned to an individual at a point in time—for me my VIN is a 76,XXX number. My VIN was probably assigned to me weeks ago, but my vehicle didn’t enter production until a couple few days ago (for whatever strange odd reason we may never know, but maybe it was because I ordered the super rare red color AND a tow hitch which also seems to be causing lots of issues). So, I have a low VIN number but my MYP just came off the line yesterday, meaning it SHOULD HAVE all of the new refreshes even though it has a low number. So, the VIN’s are assigned to a person, not as they come off the line. Make sense? My SA shed A LOT of light on the way things work at Tesla, and I understand now, the reason behind all of the madness. He was just as stressed out as we are, and it’s because while it doesn’t make sense to us—the buyers—it doesn’t make sense to the Sales Advisors either......and they have to deal with us, LOL. Oh, and he did say that they work the furthest deliveries first (us on the east coast) then deliver for the closer folks on the west coast. It takes DAYS for us out here to get our vehicles where as those closer to Fremont can get delivered much sooner. Hope all of this may have shed some light in the midst of all the madness.