As it pushes to deliver an incredible number of vehicles during the last week of the year, Elon Musk says that Tesla will cover the difference in the value of tax credit if it can’t deliver by the end of the year.
In the past few weeks, Tesla has taken several initiatives to help with sales and deliveries during its usual end-of-the-quarter push.
This one is particularly special since it also coincides with the start of the electric vehicle federal tax credit for Tesla buyers.
Tesla is attempting to deliver as many vehicles as possible in the US by the end of the year in order for people to take advantage of the incentive.
Over the past few weeks, Tesla has been releasing its fleet vehicles for sale to help deliveries before the tax credit starts to phase out.
Now Musk reiterates that Tesla is releasing its vehicles, including those that were ordered by customers who can’t take delivery by the end of the year:
Tesla has released all cars for sale where original customer can’t take delivery before year end, as well as test drive / display cars, which cost less.
Reminder to US buyers that $7500 tax credit drops in half in 8 days. Order online at https://t.co/46TXqRrsdr or visit stores.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2018
With Tesla, it can take days or weeks between order and delivery, which can give pause to buyers looking to secure the tax credit when there are only a few days left in the year.
But Musk now says that Tesla will cover the difference in the tax credit ($3,750) if Tesla said it would deliver by the end of the year and the customer did try to take delivery:
If Tesla committed delivery & customer made good faith efforts to receive before year end, Tesla will cover the tax credit difference
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2018
Over the past few weeks, Tesla has been telling customers that it can deliver inventory, display, and test drive vehicles by the end of the year.
As we previously reported, Tesla also made other moves for the end-of-the-year push including an extension of the referral program and a cancellation waitlist.
Earlier this week, we also reported on Tesla introducing a new 5-minute buying and delivery program called ‘Instant Drive Away’.
All those initiatives are attempts to facilitate sales and deliveries by the end of the year and now Tesla is adding the reassurance that they would cover the difference of tax credit if they can’t complete delivery by the end of the year for some reason.
Electrek’s Take
I think that’s fair. If you are using the start of the federal tax phase-out to sell cars, you should guarantee the difference in the value.
But Musk said that it’s dependent on the customers making “good faith efforts” to take delivery before year-end.
If customers want Tesla to follow through on this, I think they will have to be very flexible about taking delivery over the next week.
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