I was under the impression that you had to be a licensed dealer to take possession of an untitled car. I have a family friend who owns a dealership, I’ll ask and see what he says (at least for CO, but maybe he knows for other places as well).
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rxlawdude
Active Member
And when Buyer #2 discovers that Tesla only gives certain perks to the original owner who bought from them, watch the moaning here.
Remember, original buyer who immediately resells is also under a contractual obligation to not transfer their reservation. I'll leave it up to those who feel skirting contracts are a sport to have at it, at their own risk.
You remind me of a little boy... yeah, but... Hey, you want to violate both the letter and spirit of a contract by breaking terms, Godspeed. But I hope I never have to do business with someone like you.
Super_Popular
Well-Known Member
I think you're kind of missing the issue. Once someone buys the car they have a perfect right to re-sell it. You cannot transfer the reservation, but selling the car is not transferring the reservation.
The only real issue here is that in the case described, nobody gets the $7,500 tax credit. If the secondary buyer does not mind giving up the tax credit, in addition to paying the original buyer a mark-up, then there's no harm, no foul. I think very few people will buy the car under those circumstances, which makes it a non-issue. Assuming the seller wants $15,000 profit, and the lost tax credit is another $7,500, that means the buyer is paying $22,500 over retail price. Here's a thought experiment: Imagine Tesla announced today that anyone who wanted to pay $22,500 over retail could jump to the top of the list and get their car in a week. Would you pay it? How many people do you think would pay it? Early production cars are $49,000. But normally you'd get the tax credit, making it $41,500. Buying from a scalper would bring the price up to $64,000 because nobody gets the tax credit. Effectively you're paying $22,500 more than if you bought the car from Tesla. You might as well buy a Model S, get a bigger, faster, fancier car. Nobody is going to take this deal.
If one or the other of them (or both!) try to claim the tax credit, then they're messing with the IRS. They might get away with it, or they might not. I'd say the consequences of getting caught are not worth the risk.
If someone made a reservation to buy the car as a gift for their son or daughter, I don't think Tesla would regard that as a violation of their intent to prevent scalping. Nor would, I think, any reasonable person. I have no idea how the IRS would treat that case.
HankLloydRight
No Roads
What? What original owner perks are you talking about? For Model 3? I am both an original owner and a second owner since 2014 and I have no idea what perks you're talking about. Tesla has treated me the exact same.
And you even just said "Owner #2".. Theyre going to know they are not the original owner since he/she can't take the tax credit, so what's your point exactly?
I don't understand why people keep throwing in the these red herrings?
Again a hot smelly red herring. Makes zero logical sense. Once the car is sold to the first owner,there no longer exists any contractual arrangement to not resell the car or reservation.. The buyer/owner can do whatever the heck he wants with his used car. The "reservation" has no bearing at all once the car is sold.there are no contracts at that point. It's a used car.
HankLloydRight
No Roads
They can't. As far as I know, the IRS keeps track of all VINs that take the tax credit, so they won't let it through twice. So somebody is going to get denied if it happens the same year... I'm not sure how the IRS would resolve it.
HankLloydRight
No Roads
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the certificate of original manufacture or other document that Tesla assigns to you at sale, and then you take that to the DMV to issue/create the new title in your name. Just like when you sign your old title to someone else when you sell a used car.
I agree with everything you have posted. To placate current reservation holders what Tesla might do is have employees pose as potential buyers and gain enough info to identify sellers and then pull their reservations. They would not do this for more than a few sellers but would publicize the cancellation. It might deter some but if you are planning to cancel if you don't sell, there is little downside to trying to sell.
Entrapment is a low business. I don't think Tesla would stoop to it. Of course, responding to an ad and asking for further information wouldn't be as bad as entrapment. But with 170 posts already in this thread, has anybody seen an ad of this sort other than the one excerpted in the OP? And if, as I suspect, there are probably fewer than ten or fifteen such ads out of 400,000 reservations, why does anybody care?
I just searched for Tesla Model 3 on eBay and nothing shows up but some kind of window sticker to tell people you have one reserved, and a bunch of Model S and X cars and accessories.
In your third sentence you state what I suggested would not be entrapment so to whom are you directing your first two sentences?
Simply asking the seller for information is not entrapment. Posing as a potential buyer (which you suggested) is entrapment. While this is probably not illegal, I hope Tesla would not stoop to it.
And if there are as few as I suspect there are trying to sell their reservation, and fewer yet taking them up on it, as I suspect also, then I just don't see the point of any of it. There are things in this world worth getting upset over. A dozen people out of 400,000 who manage to sell their Model 3 reservations just isn't one of those things.
rxlawdude
Active Member
You guys do realize that "entrapment" is a criminal procedure concept, right? Not applicable in civil cases, which a contract breach is. Tesla is certainly within its rights to root out the jerks that reserved with a profit motive and I hope they do so aggressively.
I will say that if Tesla goes any further to assist scalpers and push early res buyers to the back of the list, I'll probably drop due to principle, even if it does not affect my purchase. I didn't mind paying $1000 for a car nobody was sure would be produced, I don't care that my guess of $52k would be about right (about the correct price BTW), but if it becomes a "Who You Know" situation for the reservationists, screw them.
I will admit it left a bad taste in mouth when they said Employees would get the cars first, and it appears Investors were higher on the list. For the FKG discount version???? Are they high? Will Ira declare a $1 million capital gain loss for 'giving' Elon SN01? Barf. Money weasels. Rent your mom for $10 an hour type of crap.
The "Watch This Family Receive Their Car" BS was Ira's family looking at the car. They supposedly picked it up the next day even though they had 4 drivers. WTF?
I hate folk who try to game people for a buck. You can make a good living being honest.
I will admit it left a bad taste in mouth when they said Employees would get the cars first, and it appears Investors were higher on the list. For the FKG discount version???? Are they high? Will Ira declare a $1 million capital gain loss for 'giving' Elon SN01? Barf. Money weasels. Rent your mom for $10 an hour type of crap.
The "Watch This Family Receive Their Car" BS was Ira's family looking at the car. They supposedly picked it up the next day even though they had 4 drivers. WTF?
I hate folk who try to game people for a buck. You can make a good living being honest.
Dr. J
Active Member
I think these folks are doing us a favor by being beta testers. I'm not going to want one of the first few dozens or hundreds of samples. My garage isn't yet ready anyway for the blessed arrival. I'll be lucky to have a place to park it out of the weather by the time it gets here.
Employees were NOT the first recipients. Investors were.
Employees with dirt under their nails are probably still far down the list. There were a lot of investors and executives.
What??? What's Tesla doing to assist scalpers? They've said they will not allow reservations to be transferred. They can do nothing to prevent early buyers from selling their cars, and if that happens, it's not Tesla "assisting" them to do so.
As for "push[ing] early res[ervation holders] to the back of the list," nobody is getting pushed to the back of the list. Once you have your reservation, you keep your place in the list. If you choose to delay buying your car until the options you want become available, you still keep your place in the list. They've been very clear about that.
Other car companies don't even have reservation lists. (Nissan did, with the Leaf, and screwed it up big time, which is why I have a Roadster now, since after waiting six months beyond the promised delivery date, and no leaf in sight, I switched to Tesla.) But other companies just build their cars and ship them to their dealers, and the dealers sell them however they like. Tesla gave us the opportunity, for a refundable $1,000 deposit, to claim a place in line, and they're sticking to it. And they said right up front that employees would be first in line, and owners next, and everyone else after that. So we all knew the score going in.
One of the reasons I started this thread was my own curiosity about how many people would try to sell the car or the reservation. I just did another search for "Model 3" on craigslist in Los Angeles and 4 ads came up selling Model 3's (none of them have taken delivery yet). I'm not going to take the time to search Craigslist markets all over the country but I am curious about how many of these ads will continue to pop up, especially over the next few months.
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