Hacker News Reader

Comment by vanattab | Hacker News Reader

It likely that this article put whoever told him Elon was driving the car around in some hot water. I would not want to be that guy when Elon reads the headlines. I am not saying Elon is vindictive or anything just that it would be a uncomfortable position to be in. It's likely he thought the buyer would think it was neat that Elon was driving around in the same car he was going to get... if so he was wrong.

View on HN

I hope Elon personally takes responsibility for this. The person who told the author what was going on is the only person in the story who provided good customer service!

Why would he think it was neat that Elon had driven his car? If I was buying a used car I'd be annoyed that someone else was adding extra mileage to the car I'd purchased.

I don't know. I would think it was kinda neat because I got alot of respect for Elon but I would also kinda wonder about the extra mileage.

EDIT: Message to the down voters I am not saying its rational that I think it would be kinda neat. I am just honest enough with myself to recognize that I am not a purely logical beast.

I mean, I'd be pretty excited to learn Elon had been driving the car. However, they did mention that because of the changes they've made to test the new software he wouldn't be able to receive the car. If the company had just said "We're sorry, here's another car with all the features you wanted" but they didn't they dropped the ball.

I would think that too, but it seemed that because of the testing, the vehicle was no longer available to the customer, and would retire as an R&D vehicle. From the write up, Tesla pre-sold a used vehicle, and then was unable to fulfill the sale. The customer's option seemed to be "find a different car".

And if Elon had actually acknowledged this it would have been much easier for the Owner Advisor to find an alternative and Elon could easily have made the company pay a $20k difference.

If I was Elon Musk, I would promote that guy and put everyone else in "hot water" for not escalating this issue.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com