The usual process for ordering a Tesla involves placing the order online (or at the store, in which case you just use their Internet to place the order online); then:
- If a car matching your specifications is available nearby, it's assigned to you and delivered within a matter of days.
- If not, a Tesla employee may contact you with an offer on a similar car. For instance, if you specify an SR+ with white paint, but there's no such car nearby; but if an otherwise identical car with red paint is available, Tesla may offer you the red car. They might even do so at the same price as the white car (red is normally pricier).
- If nothing remotely similar to what you specified is available nearby, or if you refuse such an offer, then your name goes next on the list to get a car matching those specifications for a shipment to your area. This shipment could arrive in a matter of days or take weeks. Tesla tends to deliver more cars late in the fiscal quarter than early, since they ship to distant markets early in the quarter (which takes time, so they arrive later in the quarter). This helps them on the balance sheet. The bottom line is that we're now in the second quarter, so delivery in this situation is likely to take a few weeks, but probably not over two months.
There are variants possible. If you're not picky about colors, for instance, you might pick out something acceptable from local inventory, either online or with the help of a salesperson at the store. You expressed an interest in getting a more recent car, and I see that Tesla's online "existing inventory" tool does show VINs, so you could search for a car with the highest VIN. (That might or might not mean it was produced more recently, though. I vaguely recall hearing that VINs are
not assigned in order as the cars leave the factory, but rather to configurations as they're batched to be built.)
AFAIK, there's no difference in price for ordering online from your computer at home vs. ordering in-person at the store. That said, some people have sought out deals on demo cars -- those that have been used in test drives or as display cars in stores. Tesla sells those at a discount. They're still legally new cars in most jurisdictions, although they can have hundreds of miles on their odometers. (That's no different from buying a car off the lot, or in a dealer trade, from a traditional dealership; such cars are often test-driven before being sold, and in the case of a dealer trade will be driven between dealerships.) You'll probably have to talk to a salesperson to get such a car -- although you may be offered one as part of step #2, above. (I was.)
When you went to buy your previous cars, did you check the VINs to see when they were produced? Could they have been sitting in the dealer lot for 6 months?
Don't worry about it, just get a car and put this phase behind you.
Tesla, as they like to point out, works differently from other automakers. In particular, they make small incremental changes pretty much continuously, rather than saving them up for model-year changes. A Model 3 built today is different from a Model 3 built two months ago, which was different from one built two months before that. The differences are usually small, so I wouldn't worry about the difference between a month or two, or even six, in production time. As the age increases, though, the differences may be more important. Except for demo cars, you're unlikely to find anything in inventory that's more than two or three months old. The SR+ has only been in production for about two months (I don't recall the precise time, though).
One big change is HW3, which is replacing HW2.5. In case
@Niroc doesn't know, HW2.5 is the Autopilot/FSD computer installed in most Model 3s. The latest production runs (starting about 2 or 3 weeks ago, IIRC) reportedly include HW3, which is a much more capable device. Thus, some people want to ensure they get HW3. That said, the advantages of HW3 at the moment are slim to negative -- some features haven't yet made their way to HW3. Moving forward, though, HW3 will be much better for full self-driving (FSD) functionality. OTOH, if you pay for the FSD package, and if your car comes with HW2.5, you'll get a free upgrade to HW3. Thus, the advantage of getting HW3 now is simply that you won't need to schedule a service visit, and you may get HW3-only features a little earlier. (Most people seem to think that a Ranger visit will be sufficient to swap the computer, so this should be a very minor inconvenience at worst.) If you don't buy FSD, then AFAIK there are no advantages to HW3, at least not now. It's conceivable there will be some advantage to it for non-FSD cars in the future, but that's speculative at best. Pick your crystal ball to figure out which way it goes.
