Tesla is already offering low 1.99% financing on six-year loans for customers looking to buy the $48,990 long-range, all-wheel-drive Model Y, the series production version of the newer car that debuted in early April. Gone are the days when Tesla had to keep hiking prices to avoid being hopelessly swamped by demand. Now CEO Elon Musk has to fight for every new customer.
Just weeks after the launch of the Model Y refresh, a slightly newer version of the five-year-old crossover, Tesla informed buyers on Sunday they can already have the car at a discounted financing rate. Interested buyers can qualify for a six-year loan at 1.99% if they put down $3,999 for the purchase of a long-range all-wheel-drive version. By contrast, financing rates for some of Tesla’s upscale models top 6%.
The only reason I’d be caught driving a tesla is if it had a completely true bumper sticker that said “I bought it after he blew his brains out.”
The fact he dismantled all the agencies overlooking tesla safety weighs in to his overtime fascism.
Even if replaced as CEO and fully diverted from Tesla, I don’t think I could trust their safety going forward.
I’m constantly floored that institutional investors are keeping the TSLA stock price from cratering. They dont think of the pressures on the brand like we do. I think they are pricing in future patronage by trump.
i suspect PUTIN/msb/qataris are sitll keeping the stocks afloat too.
I’m not sure why anyone expected a new facelift would improve sales. It’s clear the overall decline is associated with Musk going full mask-off fascist, given this, driving around in a car that looks unlike any previous Model Y just makes it completely obvious that you knew this and decided to buy one anyway. If they want to bolster sales, maybe they should have kept producing the pre-facelifted versions for a while.
Full disclosure, I used to own a Model 3. I had it for 5 years and was generally very happy with it - it was a great daily driver, cost very little to run and maintain, and (aside from a few issues later in my ownership, which was one of the reasons I decided to sell it) in general it was very easy to live with.
There are clearly some very skilled engineers at Tesla who know how to build a great product. It is a shame their efforts are being undermined by a fascist lunatic with a narcissist complex.
aside from a few issues later in my ownership, which was one of the reasons I decided to sell it
I’m curious, what kind of issues did you face?
The main issue was a catastrophic failure of the VC_FRONT module which is one of the critical onboard computers that manages things like the 12v battery and low voltage power distribution (basically a “smart” fuse box). Without it the car is bricked and cannot be driven.
That took several weeks and some back and forth around the extended warranty to resolve, and then even after that module was replaced, on my first drive after the repair it went straight into limp mode and then spent another week at the service centre having that diagnosed.
During this time I decided it might be time to start looking for a new car, ended up selling it a few months later and took delivery of a new Polestar 2.
Offering low interest rate finance is not a “discount” lol
Yes it is. Low interest rates are literally a discount on high interest. Lower interest reduces the overall cost of the loan by a shitload.
I’m really not sure you understand how discounts work. Or interest rates.
Tesla’s do not come with interest. Interest that you get by taking out a loan to purchase one is a price increase. You’re paying more. A lower interest rate doesn’t mean you’re getting a discount, it just means that you’re only paying a smaller amount increase. The car itself is still the same price it was before - what is changing is how much extra interest you’re repaying on top of the cars price. The interest isn’t on the car’s price, it’s on the amount of money you borrowed.
You’re just playing semantics. Lots of customers finance cars. Before the “discount” they had to pay $X/month, now they pay $(X-discount)/month. They literally pay less each month because of the discounted, subsidized rates. It’s a discount for folks that finance through Tesla. I’m not sure why you think you’re the only person that understands the simple concept of interest here. You’ve just decided that the definition of discount only applies to MSRP arbitrarily. Is a point of sale tax credit not a discount either?
You’re just playing semantics.
I’m playing semantics? I’m not the one saying that a lower interest rate is a discount. An interest rate is by itself a price increase, not a discount. The interest rate is on the LOAN, not on the car. The car is the same price as it was. The LOAN is always more than the price of the car.
This is like saying that you get a “discount” if you pay the RRP in cash. You don’t, you’re just not paying interest on a loan. It’s not a discount.
I’m not sure why you think you’re the only person that understands the simple concept of interest here.
Because you guys calling this a “discount on the price of the new model Y” clearly don’t lol. It is a simple concept, yet you guys are showing again and again that you don’t get it. When interest rates on mortgage decrease you don’t say “house prices have just been discounted!”, do you?
Interest is an increase in price*. Lower interest isn’t a discount, it’s a smaller increase. Calling it a discount is like punching you instead of stabbing you and calling it nonviolence.
*In exchange for better payment conditions, but that’s not relevant to the point.
I wouldnt drive a Tesla if they paid me to drive it.
they are death traps, even thier regular models are lacking QC in many places. there is a reason you never hear people buying a used one. i only heard of a Clout chaser doing this once.
In the highly saturated market of the South Bay in California, word of mouth was that it was better to buy a 1-year-old Tesla because then someone else spent the time and money to sort out the most obvious production defects. I don’t know if people are still buying them at all, though.
I’ll continue to drive mine. I’ll get a used one once I drive this one into the ground.
If you want to make political stance and go for inferior car? Go right ahead. I don’t give a shit what some CEO does. I’m sure all of you stopped playing blizzard games and avoid everything owned by nestle and for sure aren’t recommending cars running literal slaves camps, right???
This comment reads like aggressive cope
It’s actually kind of tragic. Tesla would have been, no, should have been a key domestic EV maker. They should have been our global offering in a strategically important industry. But instead, they’re rapidly becoming a pariah. And it’s all because of one man. One terrible, terrible man.
This is a very, very important lesson that America MUST learn: just because someone is rich, that does not mean they are smart, or good, or trustworthy. Personality matters, a lot. I am certain that if Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning could go back, they would tell Mr. Musk “no thank you, we’re not interested in your investment,” even though they really needed the money. It wasn’t worth it, it came with strings attached. Within just a few years of taking Musk’s money, both men were forced out of the company, and Musk was well on his way to convincing millions of Americans that we was a super genius who singlehandedly invented the electric car.
In this country, we have not only tolerated megalomaniacal narcissists like Musk, we’ve celebrated them. That has to stop. Look at where it has gotten us. One of them is president now! If we don’t learn from this, and start to see men like Trump and Musk as the disease that they are, we are doomed. If we don’t get these men under control, they will control us.
I think the education needs to go further. Being billionaire rich is in itself a huge red flag; and people having this much money should immediately cause people to distrust them on every level because nobody gets that rich from honest work, from paying their employees fairly, from caring about the environment and general wellbeing of mankind.
Being a billionaire should disqualify people from owning and/or having shares in any economical sector deemed essential to societal wellbeing, not to mention from holding any kind of public office or even from exercising any kind of political agenda at all. They’re rich, they don’t need representation. They actually can take care of themselves.
australia has the opposite in many ways… we have a thing called tall poppy syndrome where we internally believe everyone should be equal so much that we sometimes tend to tear people down for doing better than others
a middle ground would be nice
just because someone is rich, that does not mean they are smart, or good, or trustworthy
The richer someone is seems to correlate with the absence of one or more of those traits.
Don’t need to be smart to be born into money, which is where basically all the richest have come from.
Don’t need to learn to treat people with compassion if you can afford to entirely opt out of public society
Don’t need to be trustworthy if you have enough to pay people to be around you.
Past a certain bank balance, a person loses their humanity.
Except Tesla never made good cars. It was always clear that real car manufacturers will learn to make good EVs before Tesla learns to make good cars. For some time Tesla was supported by fans who could ignore major design flaws and investors looking for short term profits. Long term best case scenario for Tesla was always to just become another, normal car maker.
Except Tesla never made good cars.
The Roadster was pretty damned good. Of course it was the model that Musk had no influence over.
That’s simply not true, the last couple of years quality is up massively. The highland Model 3 is fine really, sure there are some things Tesla could’ve done better, but that goes for most manufacturers. I drive one and I haven’t had any big issues, I do have some annoyances though, but there are also things the car does way better than its competition. People also seem to forget that Tesla was pushing out over the air feature updates while VW was manually updating their ID3 range on the parking lot in the docks.
The Model 3 and Y in its current state, at its prices before these wild discounts and 0% financing, is objectively a very competitive car and would probably made the top 3 list in every country in 2025 and possibly 2026. Let me put it differently, if Ford sold the Model 3 and Y, it would outsell any other vehicle on the planet. The only reason the Model Y will not be the best selling car this year is Musk and by extension the direction the US took with the elections. At least here in Europe, people don’t really want to buy a Nazi symbol of a car. And frankly, if I could get rid of mine today, I would, not because the car is bad, but because of the Nazi in charge.