Then why allow them to mix the base model price with the max model performance? Had they simply been clear about what the "$49k Model S" offers, there would be no issue at all. None.
The problem is that, until yesterday, they weren't sure where they wanted to draw the lines. Or at least within a few days of yesterday.
As such, the alternative would be to describe all planned features as 85-only features. People would have screamed that the 40 and 60 are gimped so they'd have to be more nuanced in the language, but I think that would have addressed your concerns.
On that note...
I'm talking about what got me to and sustained me after the reserve.
If they explicitly said none of the "interesting" features are even optionable for the 40 model would you have not reserved (and promoted Tesla with friends)? If the answer is yes, then you can see why they (and the industry general) have motivation to be intentionally vague. If the answer is no, then you shouldn't be considering cancelling your reserve at this point; other than to take a principled stance that you feel deceived (which is arguably a valid reason but has practical consequences for you getting to enjoy an S before 2014).
When the Model S is in full production, if Tesla advertised the 'Model S' as going 0-60 in 5.6 seconds and recharging in an hour, but does not qualify that it applies only to the high-end model, you don't think they'd be in trouble if they also included the $49k price in that advertisement?
I think we're in agreement here about the future expectations -- as of yesterday's official posting is well past prototype and ballpark numbers. They have to be careful in the language, which is why they're reviewing the official pages and updating old information rapidly.
Do you think they really didn't know that the 0-60 specs didn't apply to the 160? Do you think they didn't know the 160 wouldn't be super-charge capable?
The former they should have brought to community attention earlier. The right time probably would have been when they announced Sport/Performance. A "bad news / good news" post that covered both topics would have made people grumble, but eventually come to peace with the decision long before pricing/options sticker shock.
The latter I think they should have spoken up earlier, perhaps when they first disclosed supercharging, but I think it was a mixture of concerns that led to the decision. They may not have known until relatively recently that the combination of these concerns would lock in that conclusion.
I imagine the same could be said for crippling the 160's viability by prohibiting supercharging so that the company gets the biggest bang for it's buck (if that is the case based on speculation here). Good in the short-term, but what about the future?
Nah, I see those as different. Ordering the shipping priority to help the financials (300 before 230 before 160) is different from feature availability decisions by battery capacity.
But it's not arbitary with respect to the 160. It's a decision made by the company to place the less important customers at the back of the line.
Totally disagree with the characterization here. If you really feel like Tesla is considering smaller battery capacity customers as "less important", that's a problem that they need to fix. The feedback you might want to give to Tesla is that for the X they might want to consider making battery capacity an at-reserve selection and making the reserve fee relative to battery capacity (3k, 5k, 7k for example). Or something like that, so that you are paying less up-front because your place in the queue is later.
Where did Tesla tell me this was preliminary information?
Until they start listing available options, what is standard per category (Base/Perf/Sig/SigPerf), and what the non-standard options cost per category it's all preliminary pretty much by definition. That's what made yesterday's information release so significant.
They would have a hell of a time saying the Signature "standard" battery was less than 85 kWh or that the signature badging cost extra on top of the Signature standard packaging. But other than really crazy stuff like that, there was a lot of vagueness in previous posts about what would be standard per category.
By that reasoning, maybe these option prices will change too and it will be our fault for not understanding that they are, after all, still preliminary at this point?
If they make significant changes in yesterday's numbers in a way that makes pricing go upwards, then I think pretty much everyone here would be in agreement with you that it's worth getting upset about (and vocal). Configuration "guesses" before yesterday are a different story though.
And if a 300 ends up as the showcase vehicle, but there's a big sign at the door shouting, "$49k!", would that be an acceptable advertising strategy from Tesla?
Nope. And it will potentially get them into legal trouble for doing so. I expect the showcase vehicles to be "well equipped" and the reps to be pointing that out incessantly so there's absolutely no reasnoable chance for confusion.
Again I appreciate your response, and I am trying to consider the things you've mentioned.
Aye. Just trying to help.
I hope Tesla makes you happy, so that you won't give up on them and because your concerns are valid. Where we disagree, I think, is in the degree that they were deceptive or not above-board.
I think we totally agree that they could have done some things better. I think a key learning for Tesla going forward (X, Bluestar) is to do some simple PR things just a little better. One example is to have someone responsible for reading the official forums (and perhaps these forums) regularly and making sure that blog posts quickly address misconceptions, confusion, and heated debates. I'm not saying they should disclose information prematurely. They have the blog post platform to talk about things, but they've used it for big reveals not minor course corrections for the public interpretation of the big reveals.
