Here’s Everything That Just Went Down at Tesla | Hacker News Reader

Here’s Everything That Just Went Down at Tesla

bloomberg.com

26 pointshoward94110 comments

Quoting the quotes: “Full Self Driving” [...] “imminently,” [...] “drive automatically on city streets.”

Meaning you can pay now to get later this little self-driving feature multiple huge companies have been struggling to implement for ten years. That they haven't yet been able to demonstrate even with superior sensory equipment. I'd say it's not fraud if you've deluded yourselves into thinking you can deliver. But this is not legal advice.

> Customers now can return a Tesla within 7 days or 1,000 miles of driving for a full refund.

So Teslas don't depreciate when you drive them off the lot? Or perhaps they are so confident that the return rate per this policy will be low enough that the increase in sales will more than compensate.

I'm assuming they ran the numbers and came up with something like this:

Cost of in person sales force: 100M

Cost of in person returns: 4M

Cost of online only sales force: 4M

Cost of online only returns: 20M

And they realized they could save a ton of money and complexity while only inconveniencing a few more people than usual

Exactly. No more lease payments for Class A retail spaces!

Several of the online mattress companies offer free returns. I think Casper and Leesa both offer 100 days, for example. I think it's very safe to assume that a mattress depreciates a lot when not in brand new condition.

But the model is obviously working for them. Maybe the industries aren't exactly comparable because of different margins, though.

These companies tend to donate returned mattresses straight from the customer's house rather than try to resell (against regulations in a lot of places)

Exactly. "Returning" an internet mattress is a lot like when a bookstore "returns" unsold inventory by tearing off the covers and dumping the rest.

It works because these online mattress companies ship you the mattress in vacuum sealed plastic.

When you finally manage to wrestle the plastic off, the mattress expands to five times the shipped volume. For many people, the immediate next thought is "God I hope it's tolerable, because there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to get this thing out of my bedroom, let alone ship it back."

Both Casper (https://casper.com/faqs/returns-exchanges/how-do-i-start-a-r...) and Leesa (https://support.leesa.com/hc/en-us/articles/115011597147-Do-...) will arrange pickups for you, so they don't have to ship it back.

It's actually not that hard to pack up one of those mattresses. You won't get it back into the original box, but you can make it a good bit smaller.

You get a mattress bag, tape the end up, and cut a hole in the middle of the side and put a vacuum hose in it. Then walk around on the mattress until it's as flat as you can get it, and tape the hole closed.

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