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Another Delivery Casualty!

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BobCio

BobCio

Member
Jul 25, 2016
156
99
El Dorado Hills, CA
#1
We were scheduled for 9/27 to pick up our Red/White Int, AWD, 19" Sport. Yesterday (Thursday, Sept 20), we get a text from Tesla asking - "Would you like to pick up your car early" - YES!!!

So we were scheduled for tonight, Friday, Sept 21 at 5:45PM in Rocklin, CA. We get there and wait as they cannot locate the car... The good news... They found it. The bad news... It had black interior, not white - their computers said white - but it wasn't!

So now we're back in the waiting line with no idea of when we will receive our car...

Hey, if you are waiting on a RED/Black LR AWD, 19" in the Rocklin area, they now have an extra one on hand!
 
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#2
BobCio said:
We were scheduled for 9/27 to pick up our Red/White Int, AWD, 19" Sport. Yesterday (Thursday, Sept 20), we get a text from Tesla asking - "Would you like to pick up your car early" - YES!!!

So we were scheduled for tonight, Friday, Sept 21 at 5:45PM in Rocklin, CA. We get there and wait as they cannot locate the car... The good news... They found it. The bad news... It had black interior, not white - their computers said white - but it wasn't!

So now we're back in the waiting line with no idea of when we will receive our car...

Hey, if you are waiting on a RED/Black LR AWD, 19" in the Rocklin area, they now have an extra one on hand!
Click to expand...
Bummer! I hope I have the opposite mistake where they have a white interior instead of the black I ordered. If they just gave it to me for free then I’d happily take it!
 
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#6
frank69 said:
Uh, there is something def wrong when your order sheet says white seats and they put in black. Did no one in tesla actually check. What a disgrace...seriously.
Click to expand...

If I were to guess (and it's merely a guess), they build lots of cars and then match them to the orders. That would explain why we don't get our VINS until literally a week or two before delivery.

An update on mine is that now Tesla believes they can have the car as early as Tomorrow (Sunday). This again supports the "build-em then match-em" theory.
 
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#7
frank69 said:
Uh, there is something def wrong when your order sheet says white seats and they put in black. Did no one in tesla actually check. What a disgrace...seriously.
Click to expand...
Just as bad as ordering a black car, you get there all excited and they drive out a blue one. Even the Monroney said black and the VIN was correct. That is in one of the threads. I can see grabbing the wrong color seats because the others are not available and you need to keep the line moving or Musk will throw a tantrum, but painting the car the wrong color?? WTF.
 
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#8
BobCio said:
If I were to guess (and it's merely a guess), they build lots of cars and then match them to the orders. That would explain why we don't get our VINS until literally a week or two before delivery.

An update on mine is that now Tesla believes they can have the car as early as Tomorrow (Sunday). This again supports the "build-em then match-em" theory.
Click to expand...
It has been that way since day 1. I do not understand where people got the idea they build what is in the order bank. You cannot run a smooth and steady production line that way. That is why Tesla appears to have dialed back production for M3 the last few weeks. They need to clear out the excess production units.
 
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#9
beachbum77 said:
It has been that way since day 1. I do not understand where people got the idea they build what is in the order bank. You cannot run a smooth and steady production line that way.
Click to expand...

Nonsense. You absolutely can run a smooth and steady production line that way. I know how. You need substantially better IT, communications, and management support for it than Tesla seems to have right now, however. :-(
 
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#10
neroden said:
Nonsense. You absolutely can run a smooth and steady production line that way. I know how. You need substantially better IT, communications, and management support for it than Tesla seems to have right now, however. :-(
Click to expand...
And in the absence of that great IT, communications, and management you get what Tesla has been giving their customers. A total cluster*&%$. This is what you get when you hire people from Silicon Valley who have no clue how to run a car company. Not one member of the BoD has any knowledge of the car biz. These are problems the "other car guys" solved decades ago. Maybe us old car guys actually do know a thing or two. All Tesla had to do was hire a few consultants but no, Musk is convinced he has all the answers. Yeah... right.
 
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#11
The fact is that if they'd hired the right people from Silicon Valley they could have solved the problems. Their major problems are in IT (apparently they can't keep enough good programmers and database managers?!?), communications (you can hire secretaries and communications specialists in Silicon Valley), and legal (there are plenty of appropriate lawyers in Silicon Valley).

They just *didn't do it*. The other car companies are not particularly impressive -- you don't want me to share the horror stories related to the Bolt. (Communications failures between GM and the dealerships. Repeatedly. Requiring many many hours of wasted time on the phone. This is what Tesla *ought* to be avoiding by owning its own stores, but is somehow running into anyway.)

I personally believe the problem is too many engineers, not enough communications majors. The company leadership *undervalued* "people skills" and so they didn't do what it took to handle the people-skills stuff right.

(And the frustrating thing is, there are lots of bottom-rung people who *are* great at the people skills and great at communications. But they don't have the management support.)

Traditional car companies are known for being pretty awful at people-skills stuff too, so I wouldn't have talked to them.

I would, however, have tried to poach a lot more talent from companies with heavy *customer service* reputations. Service industries. Right there in Silicon Valley, there are companies with good customer service reputations, and it would have been worthwhile to poach from some of them. I might also have hired from hotel companies, which have incredibly complicated logistics chains, tangled legal rules, *and* great customer service reputations.

On the legal side Tesla just needs to replace their chief legal counsel, who is a divorce lawyer, with someone who understands the value of looking up the regulations and procedures in each state and summarizing them in a little booklet which is distributed to staff. And looking up the copyright laws and summarizing them. And so on.
 
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#12
neroden said:
The fact is that if they'd hired the right people from Silicon Valley they could have solved the problems. Their major problems are in IT (apparently they can't keep enough good programmers and database managers?!?), communications (you can hire secretaries and communications specialists in Silicon Valley), and legal (there are plenty of appropriate lawyers in Silicon Valley).

They just *didn't do it*. The other car companies are not particularly impressive -- you don't want me to share the horror stories related to the Bolt.

I personally believe the problem is too many engineers, not enough communications majors. The company leadership *undervalued* "people skills" and so they didn't do what it took to handle the people-skills stuff right.

Traditional car companies are known for being pretty awful at people-skills stuff too, so I wouldn't have talked to them.

I would, however, have tried to poach a lot more talent from companies with heavy *customer service* reputations. Service industries. Right there in Silicon Valley, there are companies with good customer service reputations, and it would have been worthwhile to poach from some of them. I might also have hired from hotel companies, which have incredibly complicated logistics chains, tangled legal rules, *and* great customer service reputations.

On the legal side, Tesla just needs to replace their chief legal counsel, who is a divorce lawyer, with someone who understands the value of looking up the regulations and procedures in each state and summarizing them in a little booklet which is distributed to staff. And looking up the copyright laws and summarizing them. And so on.
Click to expand...
Their lead counsel is too busy trying to run CYA operations for Tesla related to Musk's "activities".

People skills are not involved when it comes to shipping cars around the globe. You just need someone with the skills and contacts to get the job done. Obviously, their recently departed VP of Supply Chain Management (who I would expect was also in charge of shipping finished units) was not up to the task. Considering he came over from Apple, it is pretty apparent he had no car experience either.
 
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#14
neroden said:
The fact is that if they'd hired the right people from Silicon Valley they could have solved the problems. Their major problems are in IT (apparently they can't keep enough good programmers and database managers?!?), communications (you can hire secretaries and communications specialists in Silicon Valley), and legal (there are plenty of appropriate lawyers in Silicon Valley).

They just *didn't do it*. The other car companies are not particularly impressive -- you don't want me to share the horror stories related to the Bolt. (Communications failures between GM and the dealerships. Repeatedly. Requiring many many hours of wasted time on the phone. This is what Tesla *ought* to be avoiding by owning its own stores, but is somehow running into anyway.)

I personally believe the problem is too many engineers, not enough communications majors. The company leadership *undervalued* "people skills" and so they didn't do what it took to handle the people-skills stuff right.

(And the frustrating thing is, there are lots of bottom-rung people who *are* great at the people skills and great at communications. But they don't have the management support.)

Traditional car companies are known for being pretty awful at people-skills stuff too, so I wouldn't have talked to them.

I would, however, have tried to poach a lot more talent from companies with heavy *customer service* reputations. Service industries. Right there in Silicon Valley, there are companies with good customer service reputations, and it would have been worthwhile to poach from some of them. I might also have hired from hotel companies, which have incredibly complicated logistics chains, tangled legal rules, *and* great customer service reputations.

On the legal side Tesla just needs to replace their chief legal counsel, who is a divorce lawyer, with someone who understands the value of looking up the regulations and procedures in each state and summarizing them in a little booklet which is distributed to staff. And looking up the copyright laws and summarizing them. And so on.
Click to expand...

Another problem is that they've hired many too young, inexperience, and underpaid staff, and most of them are probably working in the communications and logistics side of the operation. In short too many rookies.

Just checked the profiles of the logistics staff. Most seem to be under 35 years of age and some are a year or two out of college. Average salary is $45,000, which is appallingly low. Won't get any real talent with that kind of pay, especially if they have to live in California.
 
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