In December Chief Executive Elon Musk announced an unprecedented discount of $7,500, plus 10,000 miles of free supercharging, for anyone who ordered and took delivery of a Model 3 sedan or a Model Y SUV before Jan. 1.
Many people rushed and placed orders for their favorite Tesla models figuring they got a great deal. After doing the math, they believed that the discount offered by the electric-vehicle leader was more attractive than the federal tax credit, which was to come into effect on Jan. 1. And not all Model Y variants were eligible for the federal tax credit.
But on Jan. 12, on the sites dedicated to Models 3 and Y, Tesla announced price reductions of 7% to 20%. The move enabled buyers of these vehicles — Tesla’s most popular cars — to claim the federal tax credit of $7,500.
Dennis Wang — who runs DennisCW, a YouTube channel that focuses on Tesla — created a petition on Change.org on January 17, and it has already gained nearly 4,000 signatures, with many signees claiming to have bought Teslas late last year, before the discount.
The petition calls for Tesla to give away a yearlong trial of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software or free Supercharging miles to people that bought Teslas in the fourth quarter of 2022 and missed out on as much as $13,000 in savings.
Dennis Wang bought a used Model X in September and said he would be “livid” if he had bought a new Tesla ahead of the price cuts, which reduced the price of the Model Y by as much as $13,000 and the Model 3 by as much as $9,000. Elon Musk’s company delivered about 388,131 Model 3 and Model Y cars in the US during the fourth quarter of 2022.
Gary Davis and his husband, Jim, who were also victims of this say that they would be happy if Tesla would make one of the goodwill gestures the petition suggests or if it would provide credits that owners could use when they, for example, replace air filters or rotate tires.
“There could be things that we could be satisfied with,” he said. “I think we’d go a long way to mending our feelings about Tesla at the moment. We still like the car. We don’t hate the car. We just aren’t happy with the way Tesla was handling this. That’s unacceptable. That’s totally unacceptable.”
Alongside this, many owners have taken to social media to express their displeasure and anger with the electric-car maker.