Right after a week in Dallas, Texas for this year’s Podcast Movement, I flew home and settled into the normal routine before I was scheduled to spend two weeks in South Korea working with clients. I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Founders hosted by David Serna. It is a show about some of the most influential business minds in history. The present episode was about Elon Musk.
I have always been a fan of Space X, the quest for Mars, and have a Starlink mini that we use on our travels with the Sled Dog Jeep. I have been on Twitter/X since the early days and was an early adopter of Paypal. I have always been drawn to the idea of Tesla.
As a professional podcaster, I have always been willing, if able, to support my colleagues in the space, whether it’s signing up for Stamps.com or trying out a Meal Delivery plan. Still, the Founders episode literally changed my life.
Later that night at home, I was lying awake in bed at about 1:30am, and my thoughts drifted back to the episode. “Maybe I should look at the Teslas online.”
What would it hurt right? Well, by 1:40am, I had picked out a car, placed an order with $250 down on my Apple Card, and applied for a loan. Within those ten minutes, I was approved in the middle of the night, no less, and given an approximate date of delivery in 9 to 10 weeks.
Just a quick aside…I have been known to, at least in my early years, to buy a mean set of Ginsu knives or a fancy space-aged mop thingy on a random night by calling an 800-number after listening to some over-hyped pitchman.
At least I never fell for the 900-number hot chicks or the psychics pimped by Dionne Warwick.
I literally spent $60,000 in five minutes lying in the dark in my flannel P.J.s!
Of course, I didn’t say anything to Michele until the next morning. In typical fashion, I took a screenshot, claimed I had done something, and asked her to upload her ID into the app.
No crap, by 10:00 am, I had scheduled a self-test drive, I’ll get to that in a minute, and bought a charger plug to install at home. Michele called our electrician, and we were literally off to the races.
Later that day, I followed the instructions on the Tesla app, which allows you to do everything on the app, and headed to Eagle River to test drive a car about which I knew nothing.
I walked up, unlocked the car with my phone, started it up, and the next couple of hours it was mine.
I drove around Eagle River, tried the self-drive feature, and pulled into the Walmart parking lot, of all places, to learn all about the features.
While sitting there, I got a call on my iPhone from a lady in California, the first time I had spoken to a living human in this process. She said, “I see you are in the Walmart parking lot, how are you enjoying the Tesla?”
Great, I said.
I knew my mushing buddy Scott had recently bought a used Model 3 in Anchorage, and I told him the news. He immediately said, “did you know that you can no longer ship them up on the barges because of a huge fire with a load of EVs somewhere in the middle of the Pacific?”
I briefly remembered it but said, not really.
He said, let me make a call.
Still sitting in the parking lot, we found out there was really no way to get the car shipped up unless we drove or paid someone to do it.
I had already pulled the trigger, so I had to act fast.
I took the car back, walked away with it still running, and drove home.
I only had a few days before I flew to Korea, but I felt reassured that the app indicated it would be late October before ours was available.
Just a couple of days before my trip to Korea, I obtained a power of attorney through Tesla’s app, so Michele could go down and pick it up without me, and I headed across the ocean.
Within a couple of days of being abroad, we received an update that our car would now be ready between the 4th and 19th of September, and I just hoped and prayed it wouldn’t be ready until I returned.
Sure enough, on the 14th, the app updated again and indicated that it was time to schedule our pickup in Fife, WA, about 45 minutes south of Seattle. We scrambled to get my flights changed and to get Michele down to Washington.
We met each other on the 18th, and we took an Uber down on the afternoon of the 19th.
When we arrived, we were greeted by Jacob at the Tesla office, and he said Look your new car over and come back in. We signed two pieces of paper, and we drove off.
Let’s put this into perspective. I spent 60-grr in the middle of the night. I was approved for a loan in under five minutes on the app and spoke with a live person during the entire process, which took less than ten minutes.
This truly is the future!
First Drive
It took Michele and me a few minutes to get our heads on straight and head over to the mall parking lot to figure things out. We set up our profiles, set up the Fulltime Supervised Drive (which is an $8,000 upgrade), and had the car drive itself around the parking lot.
The Future of Cars
This is a 2026 Model Y, they call them the Juniper model, in stealth gray, with black interior, 19-inch wheels, All-wheel drive, and dual motor. Really, it’s just a super-fast go-kart.
I played a lot of Mario Kart on my trip overseas, and this is just like that.
We headed into the city to grab dinner.
What a fantastic experience. We are still a bit freaked out about the self-driving. We had it drive us all the way from downtown to the front door of our hotel by the airport, approximately 20 miles. This is one of the coolest things we have ever experienced.
The Story Till Now
Just a day later, Michele is flying home, and I am headed all the way to Utah to drop off the car. Remember, I said that cars can’t be shipped up on the barges?
My buddy Cooper, who works at Trail Toyz, suggested that we speak to Chase, the owner of a trailer fabrication company called Big Bubba’s in Wasilla, and they might be able to bring it up for us. You see, they load up trailers with cars and other gear that people buy in Alaska and deliver them for a couple of thousand dollars.
That is why I am headed down to Utah. It will be almost six weeks before the Tesla finally arrives in Alaska, but at least it will arrive.
That is the rest of this part of the story.
Tell me what you would like to learn about the Tesla buying experience, the self-driving mode, and even dog mode. How cool is that? There will be a lot of posts upcoming, and I will try my best to update them with all of the links in each article.
Maybe I should have just bought a Casper Mattress.
Stay tuned.
