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The Tesla Approach to Distributing and Servicing Cars
- ck2 14y agoWeren't cars advertised and sold in malls for years? This is just returning to that tradition. You can clearly see the dealership in the mall in the Blues Brothers for example ("The new Oldsmobiles are in early this year!")
- kmfrk 14y agoMaybe the companies have too many car models for that to be feasible anymore? It looks like Tesla will specialize in a handful of types with iterative improvement which will work in perfect tandem with this approach. Kinda like Apple's hardware. As an aside, it's really, really weird to see comments allowed for what is basically a press release.
- dsk2012 14y agoCar manufacturers can certainly setup mall stores to advertise their cars, but the customer will still need to buy through a dealer.
- ams6110 14y agoLikewise a dealer could set up a showroom in a mall.
- OldSchool 14y agoHe certainly presents a calm and thoughtful reply to dealerships, which they will certainly ignore. I can't see how Tesla can expect to afford free supercharger stations forever though. Maybe there are more failures that I'm not aware of, but generally I've noticed that full-size franchise automotive dealerships tend to last forever and are somehow tremendously profitable for their owners despite what looks like a tiny margin between "factory invoice" and what people pay for a new car. These are wealthy, highly profitable legacy businesses and no doubt they're going to go out fighting any disruptors in court. Next up, someone please give us the killer app that disrupts and dismantles the real estate racket and their 6% commissions...
- w1ntermute 14y ago> I can't see how Tesla can expect to afford free supercharger stations forever though. Because they sell more power back into the grid than they use up. I'm guessing they'll just add more solar panels (a fixed cost) as the number of charging stations at a given Supercharger goes up.
- 3825 14y agoThis might be impractical but I'd love to see standardization across different car companies so all the different electric cars from different auto manufacturers can share the same / similar charging facilities. Sort of like if I have a smart phone and I go to a friend's house it would be nice to be able to charge my phone on their charger. Phone chargers are cheap. Car chargers are not so much.
- thesis 14y agoThere's a standard in North America: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772
- mbreese 14y agoI'm fairly certain that is for standard charging. The super chargers probably push too much current for this standard. I don't know if it can use the same "plug" format though...
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- amalag 14y agoThis can happen in 2 ways, they are forced to or they do it out of the kindness of their hearts (monetary incentive). So the smart play is to do this because it will increase sales for all the electric car companies. Then a Tesla would have to figure out a way to limit the supercharger or charge non tesla cars.
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- uladzislau 14y agoThe whole approach seems very much alike to Apple Retail stores strategy. High foot traffic locations, product specialists working not on commission, a lot of service centres - Tesla "Genius" bars. Applying proven working strategy in a different industry is a very smart move from Tesla. I see no reason why it wouldn't work.
- timdorr 14y agoThat would be because they hired George Blankenship, who previously created Apple's retail strategy: http://www.teslamotors.com/about/executive-bios#blankenship http://www.teslamotors.com/about/executive-bios#blankenship
- lumberjack 14y ago>I see no reason why it wouldn't work. The highest end Apple products are still affordable by most people. Sure it might be an expensive investment but definitely affordable. So with great marketing they managed to get not only the previous Apple fans but also managed to convince most people that the markup for an Apple iSomething is worth it. I don't know if the same thing is feasible for Tesla cars which are definitely not affordable by most people. Also, the same marketing techniques might not work for the demographic that would buy a Tesla.
- capex 14y agoIf you start looking at cars from the affordance point of view, all luxury cars would lose a huge sales percentage. Getting a brand out there in competition with the likes of BMW and Mercedes is no easy task, and these retail outlets would help people make up their minds about where they want to spend their life savings.
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- grecy 14y ago>The highest end Apple products are still affordable by most people If you think the iPhone 5 or the Retina Mac Book Pro are affordable by most people, you seriously need to look at the poverty figures in America.
- ericdykstra 14y agoOf course vested interests in old industries will do whatever they can to block innovation. We're seeing it with all major industry disruptions. It used to be enough for the vested interests to write laws to block out, limit, or otherwise hinder additional traditional competitors (taxi medallions, ridiculous license requirements for florists[1], etc). Now we're seeing these same groups try to initiate and bring in new laws to stop competition that is truly an innovative take on an industry. Such as the Uber amendment[2] that was to be written and voted on in less than 24 hours, or cease and desist notices being sent to Lyft and SideCar, telling them to shelve their business while they investigate whether or not they are doing something illegal[3]. Entrenched industries with connections to governments, and governments making tax revenue from these entrenched businesses both have a huge incentive to get old laws enforced past their original intent (which were often written for the sole purpose of protecting those entrenched businesses anyway) and new laws written and passed to shut this down. However, these truly innovative companies are filling a need that the old ones don't. That's why there are more Uber black cars in SF than there were black cars in traditional services before Uber[4]. These companies that are pushing society forward have so much momentum and support from the communities using them that lawmakers are better served listening to the people than ignoring them. I have no doubt that Elon Musk and Tesla will be able to disrupt the car-buying market by selling direct to customers. Maybe we'll see another startup come along and piggyback off of their success by selling other cars direct, blatantly ignoring the protectionist laws, and consumers rally behind them to get the laws changed. I don't know where the future lies in the auto industry, but I do know that innovation and forward progress won't be stopped in the long run, no matter how many road blocks there are. I have huge respect for all of these companies that are not only working on doing the incredibly hard task of creating and trying to sustain a company, but having to fight much larger corporations at the same time. 1. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131571&page=1 http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131571&page=1 2. http://blog.uber.com/2012/07/09/strike-down-the-minimum-fare/ http://blog.uber.com/2012/07/09/strike-down-the-minimum-fare... 3. http://thesidecarblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/sidecar_cpuc_c-d.jpg http://thesidecarblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/sidecar_cp... 4. From Travis Kalanick's talk at Startup School
- marshallp 14y agoHackers can defeat these entrenched interests. Set up online websites that work through these problems in a structured manner (like a mechanical turk for anti-corruption).
- namank 14y agoWhy is it called Model S? Any play on the Model T?
- _delirium 14y agoI'm not sure they've given an official reason, but it's the mass-market sedan adaptation of the Tesla Roadster, so I believe playing off both the Model T (mass-produced consumer car) and S=sedan.
- Gring 14y ago"The Product Specialists (...) goal and the sole metric of their success is to have you enjoy the experience of visiting so much that you look forward to returning again." This is not the experience I had. Walked into a Tesla store, said I want to test drive a Roadster. Salesman went into that profiling mode that all car salesmen do constantly and no customer likes, asking me all kinds of questions to find out how much I earn. Since my answers didn't please him, he told me I could test drive it for $300 for half a day - essentially renting it. I won't be going back.
- shortlived 14y agoHow _should_ Tesla sales prevent any random techie from asking for a test drive?
- marshallp 14y agoThey should simply have an upfront test drive fee. Book a test drive online.
- mfringel 14y agoThey could, but their goal isn't to make money on test drive fees; their goal is to sell cars.
- marshallp 14y agoYou've missed the point completely. It's not to make money, it's to deal with the OP's problem of get looked over by sales reps. People don't like being treadted like that, that's why they hate traditional car dealers.
- mietek 14y agoHasn't the Roadster been sold out for quite a while now?
- Gring 14y ago
- sbierwagen 14y agoIn case your eye skipped over the “for free” part, I would like to emphasize that again – owning a Supercharger enabled Model S really does mean free long distance travel forever on our high speed charging network. I really wish they'd stop saying this. They're essentially committing to building a nationwide electric car charging infrastructure for $nodollars, and never charging customers to use it, ever. Which means either A.) They're not going to build more than 30 charging stations. B.) They're all going to be significantly far away from population centers, and used only for interstate travel. No matter what, a Tesla car is going to be spending 99.9% of its time charging at home or at work.
- wmf 14y ago"Free long distance travel" obviously means B. It's not like this is a secret.
- sbierwagen 14y agoIt's tapdancing on the line between "creative wording" and "outright deception". They frontload the FREE CHARGING FOREVER part, then lightly skip over the fact that a Model S owner is still going to be spending a whole lot of money on power. (Gasoline is going to get more expensive. So is electricity! Until we figure out how to paint solar cells on flat surfaces, energy will never again be as cheap as it is right now.)
- forgottenpaswrd 14y ago"Until we figure out how to paint solar cells on flat surfaces, energy will never again be as cheap as it is right now." Oh, really? What about natural gas, hydrated methane and the most important of all, nuclear fusion energy? The universe is filled with billions of billions of billions of stars, it is not that fusion energy does not work, we only have to control it and we will.
- sliverstorm 14y agoWe aren't going to see anything nuclear in the near future, sadly. The populace is just too afraid. It doesn't matter that burning coal rains down radiation in the form of C-14- most people don't know that, and remain more afraid of anything with "nuclear" in the name.
- salimmadjd 14y agoI admire Musk and tesla. However, I see two paths for them and none are good. A - fully-electric cars are still too early and will get crushed by hybrids or more efficient diesel/fossil fuel cars. Tesla becomes irrelevent. B - fully-electric is all the rage, and every brand will have one. Tesla will become the victims of their own success. I'm going to assume many of you are going to disagree with me. Mainly because we come from a world with a much different customer acquisition models. For most people, if they had a choice they would buy a trusted car brand. Would you buy an Honda/Acura, Toyota/Lexus, Mercedes, etc with dealership in every corner or an unknown car called tesla? Also, unlike niche companies like Ferrari/Lamborghini that have brand and performance appeal, tesla doesn't provide anything unique. For the same price point, there are far better cars, than the original lotus-based Tesla. To that point, what's their beachhead?
- wmf 14y agoEvery brand may have electric cars using licensed Tesla technology.
- cryptoz 14y agoIsn't that already the case? http://gigaom.com/cleantech/tesla-to-supply-powertrains-for-daimler-smart-evs-surprise/ http://gigaom.com/cleantech/tesla-to-supply-powertrains-for-...
- salimmadjd 14y agoActually, their deal with Toyota is a better example and ultimately might be the future of tesla
- marshallp 14y agoTesla are the Apple of cars. Elon Musk is the new Steve Jobs. The other car companies will have non-tech retards as ceo's and will always be playing catch-up. Tesla only has to fear techie's like google or apple itself entering the space.
- tlb 14y agoMusk says, "It is impossible for [dealers] to explain the advantages of going electric without simultaneously undermining their traditional business." But every other technology introduced, from the electric starter in the 1910s to hybrids in the 2000s, has gone through the same process. Chevrolet dealers have explained the advantages of and sold 24000 Volts in the US.
- marcamillion 14y agoRight...and have sold tens of millions of gasoline cars. For the attention that is required to encourage people to take a leap from gasoline to electric, it makes more sense for them to focus on their own stores - rather than working with third party dealers. That's why Apple has their own stores too. Look how that has worked out. Most profitable retail space on the planet, by square feet.
- Bud 14y agoWe really need some federal legal action to make sure that Tesla is not impeded. In my opinion, aggressive action of this kind would be far more valuable than previous efforts to invest in, say, questionable solar-panel companies.
- stretchwithme 14y agoThe conflict of interest argument is bogus. There's no conflict of interest between a dealer selling small cars and large cars. Or between those quipped with automatic transmissions and manual transmissions. A more valid reason is that car companies should be able to sell their products anyway they like. The purpose of government is not to hand out protected status to existing merchants. Of course, I can't pretend that government isn't already giving Tesla a lot of handouts.