The Tesla Purchase Experience: Week 3

Sunday

My parents made a surprise visit to see me for my 50th birthday (which was actually yesterday). We took a trip to the Tesla store so they could see the color and model I bought. I got a handmade card from my daughter in the shape of a Tesla, complete with a functioning door. I wish I could draw as well as she can!

I'm either 50 or 100. Or, god forbid, 50^50. Either way, sprinkles make a party!

Wednesday

Electricians came today and installed the new electrical panel and Tesla wall charger. My power was off for about 5 hours while they did the work. Here's the new panel:

Plenty of room for expansion

And here's the wall charger:

Now I just need something to plug this into

I just realized that I've been calling this thing a wall charger all the time, but officially, it's a wall connector. Wall connector sounds stupid to me, so I'm sticking with wall charger.

A city code inspector will be stopping by next week to make sure the work meets city codes.

Thursday

Good news! I got an email from my Tesla Delivery Advisor saying my car has started production and the ETA is the "very beginning of September!" Once the car is on its way to the delivery center, they will start the loan approval and trade-in process. I guess they aren't too worried that someone might not get approved for a loan.

Friday

I decided to check out the Kelley Blue Book site and see the rough estimate of of what my current car is worth. Wow! Mint.com is way off on the value. Mint values my car at $9,000. The Kelley Blue Book value is between $4,400 and $6,200 for trade-in value and between $5,800 and $8,000 for a private party sale. For sale by owner ads on Craigslist show my model with similar mileage selling for $7,400 to $9,000. This is strange because Mint says it gets the car value from Kelly Blue Book.

It turns out Mint was still using the mileage I put in for my vehicles when I first added them to Mint several years ago. When I updated the mileage to the actual value (which was about double what was in there), the value dropped back down to what Kelly Blue Book said it was worth.

Friday night, Elon Musk backtracked on his plan to take Tesla private. Now he said it will stay a public company.