hf1

+1
I hope Tesla breaks some new ground in this direction.

W8MM

Excellent synopsis. Tesla has turned out to be a classic "disruptor" in more than one aspect of the automotive business. From fuel source to ergonomics to sales practices to ... etc..

The more things stay the same, the more opportunity there is for a radical departure from the norm.

To Porsche's (VW's?) credit, they are trying to punch out ahead of the congealed status quo.

doshc

I see. You admit in enjoying manipulating people for pleasure. No surprise for the lack of sympathy for sales folks here.

So you have worked for someone else as an employee for over 35 years. You may not have any entrepreneur founder experience, experience being on board of upstart companies, or executive c-level experience. All of which - in a startup company attempting to create a new market with investor funds - you must manage extreme levels of risk and reward while keeping the company afloat. As an employee you see only a very small slice of the larger picture of keeping a business alive. And if you don't have much executive level experience in startups you may not have any idea of what is involved in managing a company that is attempting to create a new market out of thin air.

I'm not sure how the fact is missed that the EV market will not be a static market in five years time but is instead a growing market (perhaps this is the myopia in play). Especially in other countries (exponential growth). Tesla's competition and conversion of ICE is orders of magnitude much larger market than taking market share from other EV brands. The bigger bet is on EVs being the future, not that Tesla will necessarily out EV other EV makers.

I've been (before I retired) a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, founder, executive and on the board of advisors of many companies - and the only thing I know for certain is no one knows how things will unfold. I don't know if the strategy will work (and neither does Elon Musk). But I do understand the play and the bet. In this particular case - you will not find many who will think car salesmen add value to the transaction. So stating other companies will have sales teams selling their cars doesn't do much to convince me. Before the internet perhaps, but we are long past that. Customers DO want to see and feel the car but that can be done without a commissioned sales team.

Most Model 3 buyers did so on the internet, with no help of any of their 'sales folks' or 'owner advisors'. The play here is if Tesla can get this to work long term, they will have a huge advantage that - because of outdated laws lobbied and kept alive by dealers - is extremely difficult for other automakers to replicate.

daveo4porsche

https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2019/03/05/ed-goldman-tesla-to-sell-cars-only-online-what.html?ana=yahoo&yptr=yahoo

I found this funny and topical given today's trend on this thread.

W8MM

Hahaha.

W8MM

In the modern age of ubiquitous internet information, the dealer sales person's most obvious value is if they can understand, navigate, explain and conquer the CXX options system. No, really.

My Porsche dealer has great sales people, but they are sometimes mystified by the Porsche ordering/specification system. They serve as safari guides to the wilds of a virtually impenetrable option ordering system. To CXX buyers, they are well worth their overhead contributions, provided they know what's up.

In a much simpler ordering environment, I fail to see the advantage. If the retail sales person's only value is de-mystification of ordering, then a few algorithmic refinements might completely automate the function.

I can specify and see a virtual reality example of any Porsche, Bentley, etc., and save an order sheet online already. When i go to the dealer, they have a more detailed version of the same website that lets them drill down into areas that I wish i was able to manipulate from my desktop, without requiring a visit to the dealer. Perhaps the old-line manufacturers are trying to hold back some info so that their dealers don't get upset when the customer merely cross-shops a given configuration without any input from the dealer?

There are plenty of reasons to try to automate as much of the sales process as the buying public seems to want. I want more than currently exists.

daveo4porsche

given bespoke configuration a configuration specialist is necessary - but most cars are down to a few discrete choices easily covered by an online configuration site. I really really don't see the need for a car sales person - especially given that most of them are wrong, mis-informed, and general know less about their product than I do...car sales for retail consumers is a not a growth profession in my opinion. Sales people do provide some value in business to business interactions and I can see the need to continue to have account representatives and such, but honestly for the modern car industry the car salesman is NOT a value add.

earl pottinger

Dave, I found that article about no salesmen so funny I can hardly type.

Earl Colby Pottinger

doshc

Morgan Stanley says automakers want to sell cars like Tesla does but can't: 'It's against the law'

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/05/morg...esla-does.html

ILLCOMM

This is a such a dumb take. Come on dude.

Tesla has significant share of a *TINY* market.

This data is slightly dated (mid-2018) but serves as a decent proxy: "In the US, EV sales have been hovering in the 1% neighborhood for the last two years, but EV sales in April 2018 were 1.74% of total light vehicle sales and could end up close to 2% by the end of 2018"

So, Tesla has decent share in a 2% market. In the US! (Worse ROW.)

And "the only place to go is down."

Goodness. When the EV market is 10x today, merely 20% of the total, you think Tesla is going to be doing worse. LOLz.

You believe in EVs (and the end of ICE) or you don't. If you don't, well, whatever. If you do, then there is endless upside for Tesla, the car company, the energy generation company, and the energy storage company.

But whatevs, Tesla is going bankrupt, SHORT TESLA. Blah blah blah blah blah.

acoste

There are folks who lost a bunch of money in one hour. Some even protested.

Earlier I posted this listing: https://onlyusedtesla.com/listing/mo...7-pearl-5bdac/ the guy wants to sell the 2016/12 car for more than the current ($120k) new price of the model.

This is not the first time in Tesla's history: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/thre...iation.138559/

I guess that's the pain of early adopters. I think it is an expected market correction.


I was thinking about it why they had to release the 35k model. There had to be a massive pressure. Who would release a product just for fun if it doesn't have enough margin? The online sales move shows there are margin issues. Lowering prices on other models show demand issues.

The leader of Panasonic's team at Tesla, Tsuga said:

"
And what about Tesla, a reporter asked. An understandably uncomfortable Tsuga said that as a battery maker, he must strive to offer the best in the business to stay alive, “but the definition of best will change as time goes by. The 18650 and 2170 cells currently are the best in the business, and they are used by Tesla.”

And then, the shoe dropped.

“But if you look at the future, where do we see growth?” Tsuga continued. “Which existing car manufacturer will play a leading role? What type of battery will they require?”

Real automakers like prismatic batteries better, because they allow better use of the limited space in a car, just like a flat battery follows the shape of our cellphones. Tesla loves the little round things that look like AA-batteries in a transistor radio from the last century. “Prismatic batteries are conducive to the design of a vehicle,” Tsuga confirmed, and Toyoda nodded. Tesla didn’t want the prismatic battery, and its alleged Gigafactory is built around the round cells of a bygone past.
"

https://dailykanban.com/2017/12/that...volved-toyota/

I have the feeling the Model 3 pain made Panasonic mad enough not to support Tesla on later models (battery cell). This is confirmed by the Gigafact 3, there is no agreement yet who will be the cell supplier. And overall they don't see Tesla kicking off the big players (like Toyota).




There are just as many positive lies about Tesla than negatives.


Charging network
can be built fast, I don't see that an issue. I suspect in 5 years majority of the chargers will be non-Tesla. Tesla cars will be able to charge on others' networks and the current Tesla stations will be the exclusive ones.



The control arm failure issue is real, not sure why you are trying to hide it by "not documented". I can show you some related accidents. Or my friend's experience.


I have to say the location of the wheel is unusual. Unless it bounced back from a tree. I have no idea what caused this accident, and it's a bit brave to make any conclusions. "car lost control due to a high rate of speed" is just another guess.



NHTSA report about autopilot lowering the chances of an accident turned to be fake. It was debunked recently.
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/thre...-nhtsa.142582/
There is actual data that shows there are more accidents related to Tesla vehicles than to BMW, Mercedes, Audi ...
​​​​​​​https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/...r-433670ddde17

NHTSA crash tests are in favor of EVs because they only do full frontal collision tests where EVs are a lot better than ICEs. EVs are also better in side collision (cars hitting cars) because they are a lot heavier than an ICE car of the equivalent size. There is no partial frontal test which is a lot more common accident. IIHS and Euro NCAP is more detailed and Tesla is not the best in those test.

Musk keeps skewing this safety related data in his favor. "NHTSA’s tests also show that it has the lowest probability of injury of all cars the safety agency has ever tested." Yep, NHTSA tests benefit EVs plus they didn't test any competitors of S and X from the Germans.

I already mentioed that BMW 3 series is better in side pole collision tested by NHTSA. And BMW 3 driver is safer than the Tesla passenger in full frontal collision.



Yes, Intel made this mistake once ~10 years ago. They didn't release a lower node processor to protect the actual sales. AMD came in and took some market share.



​​​​​​​
I think it limits the potential addressable markets. I'm not going to buy a car without several test drives. Since I pay in cash the 7 day "test" would work. However I don't like dealing with returns which would hold me back. Deposit returns take forever at the moment. I'm 100% sure I would either rent a car before or ask a friend for a test drive. This is a pain.

My girlfriend went to buy her car a year ago, visited multiple dealerships, nailed it down to a specific Acura and she was sad that the dealership had only one sample of her choice. She was thinking to visit another dealership 5 hours away who had a car with the same spec so she can pick the better one. She is not going to buy a car online.

I'm curious how this will work out. There are a lot of people who are happy to join the cult and buy a car just because Elon says it's the best.

ILLCOMM

100%.

As always happens, people of different preference sets assume that nothing changes and their view of the world is "the right one."

Reality: Younger generations don't give a **** about salespeople, and probably place measurable value on being able to avoid them (see: Amazon). Tesla are not idiots. They are not making a risk-less decision, but they are making an informed decision: the value chain doesn't need salespeople and they know it because their data backs it up.

So for those lamenting the age of the salesperson (which is just so weird) go back and read the endless articles by "experts" about why Borders and Barnes and Nobel would destroy Amazon. It's the same argument. You can start with Barron's "Amazon.bomb" article. Go ahead! You might learn something.

And if you're interested in a Tesla, buy one, drive it for the week or 1k miles, and if you don't like it return the damn thing. <--- experience is 1000x better than any salesperson test drive.

hf1

I agree that salespeople/dealers have long become obsolete and are only surviving due to franchise laws that they will fight to the death to keep but, salespeople or not, the ability to easily test drive a car without much commitment and hassle (buy then return) is still essential and will hurt Tesla if it doesn't figure out a way to facilitate it.

earl pottinger

I would like to see a way to rent the Tesla Model you are interested in (even if it have to be speed limited) so one can try to one out for a day or two and see how it handles in your area.

Earl Colby Pottinger (Tesla, Bollinger, Rivian and other BEVs fan)

doshc

Tesla's online configurator for the last 8 months has been pointing to the $35k model around March 2019. Well, it's March 2019 and they released it as the countdown on tesla.com showed. I won't speculate on margins and feasibility. No one will know until they ship in volume and we get the earnings filing.

You keep harping on the shape of the batteries when I don't think anyone here cares about the shape of the batteries. I don't think there is a 'Cylindrical Battery Religion' at Tesla. It's an implementation detail and with 10 years of cars on the road with cylindrical batteries you can't argue with their results. Given about a dozen or more dimensions the engineers are considering (cost, size, manufacturing, availability, performance, thermals, safety, packaging etc) I believe they made the best decision with the data they had at the time. If in the future these dimensions shift to favor a different battery shape then Tesla can choose to make a switch.

Show us the NHTA safety alert or NHTA recall not anecdotes.

You're on some long pedantic rant on why the Model 3 is not actually the safest car on the road. I was not addressing that point. I was addressing the statement from the short seller that:

"The cars have proven to be the most dangerous luxury cars on the road."

Your rant on why you think the Model 3 not actually the safest car on the road has nothing to do with the fact that the above statement about it being the most dangerous car on the road is completely false.

We all know they will lose some customers. Including your girlfriend who will not buy a car online. The bigger picture is if the lost of those customers are marginal considering the economic savings of only supporting online sales.

So, let's see a show of hands of the number of folks here that bought a Tesla "just because Elon says it's the best"?