But that is part of it. Tesla owners are so satisfied with their Teslas, that when it comes time to buy another car, they buy another Tesla. Also, they tell others who are considering a new car about how much they love their Tesla which often convinces the person to get a Tesla. I know when people ask me, I tell them my Model 3 is great. In fact, one of my very good friends will likely get a Tesla because he knows how much I love my Tesla Model 3. So customer satisfaction definitely helps with "marketing".
As a result of a number of factors Tesla has such market domination now that the product doesn't even need to be great.
The product is not great. In fact I'd say the product is the worst I've experienced during my entire 7 years of Tesla ownership, but demand is higher than its ever been. A lot of the factors like the supply chain or the war couldn't have been predicted, but I think most of us were predicting the Model Y would sell really, really well due to the demand for ugly crossovers. The US just loves ugly pointless crossovers.
I had a friend buy a Model Y despite me telling him not to, and even he had misgivings about buying it. But, it was the best option available at the time. It was also a pretty risk free move as he placed the ordered before a couple significant price increases.
We joked about how I told him not to when he dealt with customer service not getting back to him, and the initial car they tried to get him to take delivery of was a complete mess quality wise. The door didn't even shut properly.
The second attempt went much better so he finally got to take delivery.
I'll ping him in a few months to see what his experiences are like. He's coming from ICE cars.
My experience is the other way around where I expect more because Tesla used to be better. Like the automatic lights used to come on when the wipers would go on in the rain. It didn't used to have all the bugs it currently has.
Tesla also isn't keeping up with other vehicles in terms of features like 360 degree downfacing cameras, rear-cross traffic alert, etc. They also don't have any vehicles currently being designed that I have any interest in or the wallet for.
I'm moving to Rivian whenever they ship me my reservation (probably late 2023), and whether I sell my Model 3 depends on how advanced FSD is at the time.
It's going to be awhile before we really see a competitive market. The legacy manufactures like VW have finally woken up to the fact that the battery supply is absolutely critical. That without it you have no EV offering. The supply chain situation will hopefully get resolved by 2023, and this will make it easier for people to shop for what they really want versus what they can get.
Long term I see the Chinese competitors as being the biggest competition Tesla will have. Even Chinese Tesla's seem to get new SW features before we get them. I think part of that is simply the result of a more competitive market there. The EU market is also more competitive due to a unified charging standard. In the US we have to keep reminding people that the Electrify America network exists.
