From Order to Delivery: My Tesla Model Y L Story

Good morning. It’s まさきん.

Today’s post is a bit different. The truth is, I’m a Tesla owner. I’ve never mentioned it on this blog, but I’ve decided to finally come clean.

I usually write about phone bills, fixed costs, and points rewards. But there’s another big fixed cost that’s always been part of my household budget: the car. I’d like to use this chance to start sharing what that actually looks like, bit by bit.

What got me started was switching to a new trim called the Model Y L. The road from ordering to delivery turned out to be longer than I expected. Starting today, I’ll document the experience over a few posts.

This time, I’m focusing on the timeline from order to delivery. I’m keeping the exact figures a little vague, but I’ll describe the process as concretely as I can. I hope it helps anyone else thinking about a new model.

Why I Ordered the Model Y L

We originally drove a Model 3. Honestly, with four kids, it sometimes felt a bit cramped. Every time we added another car seat or more stuff, juggling the space inside got harder.

So in April 2026, I ordered a Model Y L (AWD, Premium trim). The deciding factor was the three rows of seats, so the whole family could ride together. We often go out as a family of six on weekends, so this was non-negotiable.

The reservation deposit was a few tens of thousands of yen and refundable. As an entry point into a big purchase, it was a fairly easy step to take. That low barrier is part of why I placed the order without agonizing too much.

I won’t go into detail on the price, but as a rough guide it was in the 8 million yen range. I made sure to keep the monthly payments within a comfortable range. Looking at the household budget as a whole, I adjusted things so the burden comes to a little under 100,000 yen a month.

At the time of ordering, Tesla gave an estimated delivery window of early to mid June 2026. At that point I was still pretty relaxed about it. I remember telling my wife, “Looks like we’ll have it before the rainy season ends.”

The Delivery Date Kept Slipping

But things didn’t go according to that estimate. First came the initial delay.

Because the delivery slots hadn’t been finalized yet, the estimate was pushed back to early to mid July. The reason made sense, but I was a little thrown. The notice arrived without any warning, which may have made it feel worse.

Then, in late June, I was given a confirmed delivery date. I remember feeling relieved that the schedule was finally locked in. I’d even told the kids, “The new car is coming soon.”

But just two days before that confirmed date, I got another message. The vehicle registration paperwork handled by the judicial scrivener wouldn’t be done in time, and delivery would be delayed by roughly another 10 days. I never thought a confirmed date would move, so honestly, this was the one that hit hardest.

In the end, the car was actually delivered in early July 2026. Counting from the order, it took about 2.5 months.

Since it’s a new trim, delays like this may not be unusual. Even so, the last-minute notice caught me off guard. Looking back, I think it’s best to treat a “confirmed” date as more of a “current estimate.”

I had a few smaller gripes too. Some delivery updates came only as notifications inside the Tesla app, not by email. For the last few weeks, I was opening the app every single day to check.

How the Delay Ended Up Working in My Favor

That said, there was a silver lining to the delays. The first was the Supercharger perk.

Because I ordered before a certain cutoff, I had secured three years of free Supercharging. That perk was locked in at the time of ordering, so the delivery delay didn’t cost me anything. If my order had fallen after the cutoff, I might have missed out on it entirely.

The second was Tokyo’s EV subsidy. Under this program, the later the vehicle was registered past a certain point, the larger the subsidy amount. The details are complicated, and I didn’t fully understand them myself until I read through the application documents.

As a result, the delivery delay actually pushed up my subsidy amount. If I remember right, it worked out about 300,000 yen in my favor. After all my grumbling about the delays, it was a bit of an anticlimax.

Honestly, when I first found out about the delays, I was a little anxious. Looking back, though, I wish I’d checked the program rules before worrying. I’ll cover the subsidy application itself in more detail in a separate post.

Lessons from a Purchase That Depended on Subsidies and Campaigns

I learned a few things from this experience. One is to build slack into the schedule leading up to delivery.

When a purchase involves loans or subsidy applications, it’s safer to act on the assumption that dates will shift. I think this is close to the “systematize it” mindset I wrote about in Getting Started with Reviewing Fixed Costs.

The other lesson is that a delay doesn’t always mean a loss. Before rushing into anything, it’s worth checking the conditions of any subsidies or campaigns.

Depending on the conditions, a delay can actually work in your favor. That’s exactly what happened with the Tokyo subsidy this time.

I plan to dig into this topic more in upcoming posts. I’d like to cover the subsidy application process, living with an EV without home charging, and a total cost comparison with gasoline cars, one at a time.

Wrap-Up, and the Link to the Rakuten Ecosystem

This time, I walked through the process of ordering a Tesla Model Y L and getting it delivered. Honestly, there were anxious moments along the way, but I think it ended up turning out pretty well.

Even with a big purchase like a car, my approach to the household budget doesn’t change. As I wrote before in how I cut my phone bill by 8,000 yen a month and put it into NISA, my stance is to consolidate payments and perks in one place as much as possible.

We already use Rakuten Mobile, and Rakuten Card and Rakuten Points are built into our everyday payments. I feel the Tesla purchase comes from the same basic idea of “bringing things together.”

If you’re not on Rakuten Mobile yet, it might be worth taking a look at their price simulator.

I’ll keep writing up real experiences like this, little by little. Next time, I hope to share my experience applying for the EV subsidy in detail.

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