Fear of making a mistake can be paralyzing, especially when a big decision looms. During my two-week visit to Portland in January-February, I promised my relatives I would buy a reliable car that could capable of the Siskiyou pass on I-5 between California and Oregon. My Volvo had been unsuccessful in the attempt.
After test driving a CyberTruck, a classic-looking VW Buzz electric bus, and an Ionique6, I realized that the tax rebates for electric cars were likely to evaporate without notice and decided to get the best car I could that qualified so I kept checking the websites for it to appear. On Wednesday 14 May, there it was and I put $500 down on a low-mileage 2022 Tesla Model 3. I download the required Tesla app, uploaded images of my driver’s license and car insurance, and made an appointment to pick up the car in Colma in two days. I began planning how to get myself to Colma.
The next day I went to the gym for my regular class and came home for a short nap, only to be awakened by a nightmare that the order had crashed.
I called Tesla customer service and was assured that all was well. A couple of hours later my app indicated that my appointment had evaporated. I called Tesla again, a little before 7 pm and was told that the order had been cancelled and the car was back on the market. Tesla had been texting with an unverified phone number ending in 2636 (not my phone number) and that person, instead of saying “wrong number” said “cancel the order.” Canceling forfeits the $500 order fee.
While still on the phone I checked the website and there it was! Hastily, I bought it again, even though the price was higher — too high to qualify for the tax rebate.
Oops… wrong car. I was switching screens to compare VIN numbers between what I had ordered and current availabilities. The first 8 digits were identical to the car I just bought, and of the first 12 digits, 11 were identical. It was late in the day and I was deep into this mistake so I found and re-bought the car from the day before. Now Tesla had deducted the $500 purchase fee three times from my bank account and it is close to 8 pm.
Friday, instead of going to Colma as planned, I went to the Tesla showroom in Santa Rosa to speak with a manager. He was in Corte Madera at the other dealership so I was ushered into the waiting room for his call. Rob Watkins listened patiently, told me that my car was $1 more than the qualifying price for the tax rebate, and asked me to wait. He called back saying a Used Car Sales Manager would call me by the end of the day to straighten things out.
The call came the next morning, Saturday, at 8:30 am from Christian Rodriguez who was calling from NYC. I told him of the odyssey that getting to Colma would require and he suggested the 3:40 ferry and Tesla providing an Uber to a 4:30 pickup time. The good news is that my car DID qualify for the tax rebate, the bad news was that the tax rebate has to be embedded in the purchase link to be activated. On Monday at 10:30, Chris was back in Fremont, the link was generated, I bought the car AGAIN (now four $500 purchase charges deducted from my bank) and set off for Colma. I had checked out regular taxis and realized that trying to get reimbursement from Tesla for an Uber was not something I wanted to go through.

Walking from Ferry to BART
I drove my Fiat to the SmartTrain and took the 1pm train to Larkspur and walked to the ferry, arriving in SF at 3:40pm. This giant woman greeted me as I walked to the Embarcadero BART station. Thirty deafening minutes later I was in Colma and walked to the taxicab stand for a ride to the dealership. I was astounded to learn there are taxis available at many BART stops including Daly City and Millbrae.
When I picked up the car I was thrilled to learn they had deducted the tax rebate from the amount due. I drove home through SF rush hour traffic, getting home just in time to dash for the final #6 bus of the day back to Coddington Mall so I could retrieve my Fiat. I was almost as thrilled to have caught the bus as I was with everything else.

On my way to art class the next day
Buying a car online is hard and I made many errors. While Tesla requires the Email address to be input twice, the phone number goes in only once and I made a single-digit typo, putting in the incorrect 2636 number. It was improper for Tesla to cancel an order from an unverified text number. Tesla never notified me, either by Email which HAD been verified, or through the App into which I had uploaded my license and insurance information. I learned that making a mistake led to getting good help with something I was unskilled at. It helped me get the tax rebate attached at the time of sale.

Flowers for Rob Watkins
Wednesday morning, I dropped off flowers for Rob Watkins, but he was on vacation for his birthday. On Friday, the credit for all the extra car purchases reached my bank account. Now I am working on how to play my CDs on a car that expects me to stream.