The original plan was pretty much a death sentence for them, it's impossible to compete seriously without giving people an opportunity to actually see and drive the product.
Now everybody knows them, so they don't think they need stores.
In a year or two, with EV competition heating up, they'll need real stores again. Test drive a Mercedes EV, test drive a BMW EV, and... oh that Tesla thing? I don't know, I can't drive one, better go with the 'real' manufacturer.
The 'closing stores' stunt is what got my dad to finally pull his Model 3 reservation money. You no longer need to 'wait in line', and he's already got priority as an S owner anyway, to the extent that it matters. He was pissed that they'd just jerk their retail employees around like that.
I'm wondering if I should buy autopilot now that it's down to $2000, before they raise the price again. It definitely wasn't worth $5000 to me. I'm not sure it's worth $2k, but if it's worth buying, it's worth buying at the lowest price!
It's very concerning that they made that call in the first place. It should never have been reversed because they shouldn't have done it. I'm a huge fan of Tesla, but I can't help but say it feels completely chaotic atm.
With how prolific Amazon is, most of the consumer market relies on reviews to discern which products to buy, and is better off for it. I've never had the experience of first-hand interaction with a Tesla product, but I still want one strictly due the feedback I've gotten from actual owners on Youtube.
I can get a much more insightful review of the product from someone who's owned the car for 10 months, than if I were to simply sit in the car and drive it around for 10 minutes.
Leading -- almost inevitably -- to a huge market in fake reviews. This doesn't seem to be a solved problem yet.
I don't see how it could be anything but a hassle. Consider:
- The vehicle is financed and you'd have to unwind the financing. That has to be a pain in the ass.
- You traded in your old car.
I can’t afford to have most of 40k sitting in limbo for a while while Tesla figures something out. Can you?
The real answer to this question is: nobody can afford $40k in limbo.
The 30-day US Treasury is at 2.44% this week. This means you get $81 / month MINIMUM if you just leave that in US Treasury Bonds. That's the lowest-risk Treasury available, you make more money with any other investment on the market.
Amazon doesn't sell a lot of products that people are getting financing for at $30K+ prices and trading in other expensive products as part of the purchase transactions.
Things like cars and homes are not the same, for people of normal financial means, as phone chargers and boxed cereal, or even big-screen TVs.
(Also not convinced that online reviews are much of a benefit beyond partially compensating for problems unique to online retail, like the lack of gatekeeping.)
From their original announcement: "You can now return a car within 7 days or 1,000 miles for a full refund. Quite literally, you could buy a Tesla, drive several hundred miles for a weekend road trip with friends and then return it for free."
This is how buying a car should be, if it was up to me.
And for those financing returning a loan is not loan easy as returning the car.
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/refund-stories.14350...
> This is how buying a car should be
No it isn't. How realistic and practical would it be to choose between multiple makes, models, and option packages if you had to buy all of them and return the ones you didn't want within 7 days (or be stuck with them)? The only situation where Tesla's model makes any sense is for a customer who's already 99% committed to buying a Tesla, but most buyers aren't like that.
One awesome thing about the traditional dealer model is that you can try cars out at a leisurely pace with absolutely no obligation to buy. Tesla's model is twisted so that you have a Sword of Damocles handing over your head.
Yeah, but that's the only 'pace' available. Last time I leased a car, it took an entire afternoon.
You mean filling out all the paperwork when you've decided to make a deal? That's not what I was talking about. I was talking about the experience of walking into a dealership on a Saturday, test driving a car or two, and leaving without even having to sign any contracts or give anyone any payment information.
Yeah, the dealer warranty/coating up-sell song and dance is obnoxious, but it sounds like heaven compared with needing to buy cars just to test drive them.
Not now for sure, but especially not when functional and competent companies like BMW, Mercedes, or Audi, who have made incredible cars for decades, will have competitive electric options and will treat me like an adult making a major purchase and let me test drive them.
I'm not going to buy 4 cars and return 3 of them to be able to comparison shop.
Yeah I mean, in theory that's great and all but in practice most people are going to have to go through a lot of paperwork and hassle to set up a loan or otherwise get the cash together up front. Even if you can get a full refund, test driving is still a much lower commitment.
That said, maybe supply is so much more of a bottleneck than demand for them that it's not worth the money to keep all the stores open. Or maybe enough consumers have cars now that owners are just giving test drives to their friends and family instead. I don't really know what the right decision for them is here, but the "oh well nobody needs test drives because of our refund policy" argument did feel a little silly to me.
That might work for a phone or a laptop, but when it comes to a $90K purchase, I wouldn't take my own mother's word on it without sitting my ass in one first.
(And, no, I'm not going to buy it and return it later. We're buying cars, not clothes, here.)
Come on, do you honestly believe returning a Tesla will be the same experience as returning a random trinket on Amazon?
With all the financial pressure on Tesla, they will be doing anything to recognize the revenue of a "sold" car, which they can only do after the return window lapses. If the NYT forces me to call someone if I want to end a $20/mo. subscription, I shudder to think what Tesla will do to protect their $50k+ sale.