Tesla Will Now Let You Finance Your EV Repairs... With Interest Rates as High as 36% APR - FuelArc News
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Let’s say your Cybertruck pops a tire, or needs a new windshield, or you just looked at it funny and the glued-on stainless steel panels fell off. No worries! Tesla’s got you covered. You can now finance your repairs through Affirm or Klarna, because if there’s one thing America needs, it’s more high-interest debt attached […]

With Tesla, you can turn a $2,442 windshield installation into a $3,174 windshield installation through the power of interest.

This is being reported by the Teslasphere as an “excellent option” to restore affordability to a car market that desperately needs more affordability.

Only, neither of those numbers is even in the same ballpark as affordable.

  • dan@upvote.auEnglish
    2·
    21 days ago

    This is one of the reasons merchant fees are so high in the USA.

    In Australia, merchant fees for a medium-sized business are an average of 0.75 to 1.5% for credit cards and 0.25% to 1% for debit cards, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia (https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/pricing/card-surcharges).

    In the USA they’re often over double that. Some payment processors charge 3% or more for credit card processing.

    • baggachipz@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      21 days ago

      Yeah, it’s an absurd amount. A lot of restaurants add on an extra fee if you pay by card. When will the madness end?

      • dan@upvote.auEnglish
        1·
        21 days ago

        A lot of restaurants add on an extra fee if you pay by card

        In the US, this is pretty recent… It’s only been allowed since last year. Previously, MasterCard and Visa’s merchant agreements both said that merchants must not charge a fee for paying by card, and the store could have their MC/Visa agreement terminated if they were caught charging fees. Some stores got around this by offering a cash discount rather than charging a fee for cards. There was a big lawsuit and the rules got changed as a result.

        In Australia, there’s a lot of rules around card fees/surcharges. I linked to an article in my previous comment. The business can’t charge more than it costs them to process card payments, and they’re only allowed to list it as a separate fee if they have a fee-free way of paying (like with cash). If they only take card, they need to include the card fee in the advertised prices.