Tesla sets deadline on new orders to get delivery and full tax credit by end of the year

Tesla is the first automaker to hit the 200,000th EV delivery mark in the US and to trigger the phase-out of the federal tax credit for buyers of its electric vehicles.

Now the automaker has set a deadline to get delivery by the end of the year in order to get the full tax credit on new orders before it ends.

During the first week of the third quarter, Tesla confirmed hitting the federal tax credit threshold.

It means that buyers can still get the full $7,500 credit if they take delivery by the end of the year.

After that, Tesla buyers will get $3,750 for the first half of 2019 and $1,875 in the second half of 2019 before it is completely unavailable to them.

Of course, that’s if the law remains unchanged. As we reported earlier this week, a Republican senator introduced a new bill to end the federal tax credit for electric cars altogether.

If the bill passes, this whole thing doesn’t matter, but in the meantime, your delivery timing is important when buying a new Tesla.

Generally, Tesla’s main way of selling vehicles is through custom orders, which require a lead time.

The company updated its website with an official deadline of October 15 to order a new car with a guarantee of a 2018 delivery in the US:

In recent years, Tesla moved some of its production capacity to inventory vehicles, which result in a quicker delivery.

That said, the automaker made a giant push to deliver a record number of vehicles during the last quarter, which resulted in very low inventory in most markets at the moment.

Electrek’s Take

This is the latest demand generating factor for Tesla.

All of the company’s vehicles will literally become $3,750 more expensive for US buyers with $7,500+ federal tax burden starting January 1.

It’s not a massive difference in the price of the Model S and Model X, but it can make 5-8% difference in the price of the Model 3 depending on the configuration.

Some people might decide to accelerate their buying decision because of if.

The bad news though is that it now becomes clear that no buyer of the base ($35,000) version of the Model 3 will benefit from the full credit.

If some people were counting on it to buy the vehicle, they may have to rethink their decision or their budget.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.