Tesla is dishing out refunds for deposits on Model 3 sedans faster than deposits are coming in, a new report claims, but Tesla is refuting the report.
According to data compiled by Second Measure, a business analytics platform that looks at billions of anonymized purchases from credit and debit cards, in April, the automaker refunded the $1,000 deposits twice as fast as it has garnered them.
Since Tesla began taking reservations -- more than two years ago -- 23 percent of Model 3 depositors had their money refunded, the Second Measure report said.
Tesla contends the report doesn't match its own data. In an earlier letter, the company said Model 3 net reservations surpassed 450,000 at the end of the first quarter. A spokesperson declined to disclose the percentage of Model 3 deposits that have been refunded.
In a vehicle production and delivery release, the company stated that net Model 3 reservations "remained stable" through the first quarter, and indicated that the cancellations were triggered by production and availability delays.
Second Measure contends that configurations are also growing, which tripled in April from the year-earlier period, according to the data analysis.
The report says that 8 percent of depositors had configured a Tesla for production in April, which deems the purchase nonrefundable.
The data might not include customers who used a different form of payment for the deposit and the configuration, Second Measure notes.
Refunds requested by check, instead of a debit card or bank transfer, take longer to process, the company has said.
