I'm not an expert on the details, but I'm guessing that is a "legacy" finance issue. No reason why a contract couldn't be designed that treated the first week a

I'm not an expert on the details, but I'm guessing that is a "legacy" finance issue. No reason why a contract couldn't be designed that treated the first week and the rest of the finance term differently, where the buyer agreed to both, and the return was greatly streamlined. I think the biggest issue with a typical car loan is that the market value of the car decreases after it's driven off the lot, so Tesla must have some plan for dealing with that aspect of the first week returns. My guess is that they are declaring a vehicle "new" if it has under 500 miles on it, and they include the distance the car may be driven for delivery in that 500 mile "new" buffer. Thus if you take the car on a weekend getaway and return it with under 500 miles on it, it is still new (by definition) or at least as new as the Tesla that was driven 450 miles from a distribution center to a customer's door. Normal dealers sell vehicles all the time that have been "demos" for sales people and may have a few hundred miles on them. They typically sell them for a bit below invoice, but a mint condition vehicle with < 500 miles is new as far as most people are concerned. It's possible that Telsa is doing something more clever than the above, but if not that's a fairly low cleverness way of accomplishing it. There is probably a mileage limit that one must stay under in the first week to be eligible for a return.