Erroneous "Facts" Stated By Sales and Service Employees

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

My limited experience with Tesla sales people, during my few visits to my local showroom, has shown that they tend to lack a lot of knowledge about their products. I just wanted to warn people to be wary of what they are told by Tesla employees. You need to do your own research. I wanted to start a thread to hear what other people have experienced with this issue. One of my experiences a couple months ago I was told that the current cars have all of the hardware installed for full autonomous driving, and that all that was needed was more software development. Hopefully he's right. Anyone else have any experiences like this?

 

[msnow]

My limited experience with Tesla sales people, during my few visits to my local showroom, has shown that they tend to lack a lot of knowledge about their products. I just wanted to warn people to be wary of what they are told by Tesla employees. You need to do your own research. I wanted to start a thread to hear what other people have experienced with this issue. One of my experiences a couple months ago I was told that the current cars have all of the hardware installed for full autonomous driving, and that all that was needed was more software development. Hopefully he's right. Anyone else have any experiences like this?

As I'm sure your own research has shown you he's totally wrong. The current hardware is not intended for or capable of fully autonomous driving. It sounds like the sales people need more training.

 

[SOLARUSA]

I was told that the current cars have all of the hardware installed for full autonomous driving, and that all that was needed was more software development.

Unfortunately, I too was told this (at a table with 4 other customers) at a recent test drive event. The OA, who was a great guy by the way, was unrealistically optimistic on what the future software upgrade potentials are for the current hardware platform. On the upside, as a group we had an open discussion for about 90 minutes, and this was the only point where he made a statement that was obviously incorrect. A few of his other assertions were in the category of subjective opinion, but overall I thought he did a great job.

 

[Chopr147]

If you go to a legacy dealership they will tell you the hardware is installed for the future wings to fly over traffic. Tesla is a newer company that does not try AT ALL to sell the vehicle. But they do push the test drive. I for one love this. Yes some may need more training but I have never seen a happier car "dealership" . I may sound like a fanboi but ask a Tesla owner if they love their car and would buy it again.

 

[msnow]

If you go to a legacy dealership they will tell you the hardware is installed for the future wings to fly over traffic. Tesla is a newer company that does not try AT ALL to sell the vehicle. But they do push the test drive. I for one love this. Yes some may need more training but I have never seen a happier car "dealership" . I may sound like a fanboi but ask a Tesla owner if they love their car and would buy it again.

I see that as two different things. 1) Liking our cars and 2) happy with the service and communication. As service and communication go down so does customer satisfaction with the car. Tesla is at a point that #1 will suffer if they don't fix #2.

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

I see that as two different things. 1) Liking our cars and 2) happy with the service and communication. As service and communication go down so does customer satisfaction with the car. Tesla is at a point that #1 will suffer if they don't fix #2.

That's why I created the thread. I'm a huge fan of Tesla, but I've had some bad experiences with their sales staff. Good ones too, of course. I'm just concerned that they aren't training their sales people very well. My last two test drives (I've had four counting one 24 hr one with a P90DL) I left very annoyed with the two different sales people and vowed never to step back into the showroom again. My experience test driving the Honda that I bought was a much better experience. I want Tesla to be as great as I've read about, so I think I was holding the sales people to a higher standard, but I was still courteous to them. I was just disappointed they weren't courteous in return. No one person is going to sell me on a car. The car itself and my extensive research are what's going to lead to my buying decision. I sure hope they improve on the #2 for the sake of those that do rely on the sales people for their buying decision..

 

[Chopr147]

My experience test driving the Honda that I bought was a much better experience.

Well, that's a first
I am so fed up with car dealerships pushing sales and feeling ripped off every time I buy a new car. Until I bought an S

 

[ecarfan]

One of my experiences a couple months ago I was told that the current cars have all of the hardware installed for full autonomous driving, and that all that was needed was more software development. Hopefully he's right.

That is obviously incorrect. Elon has stated that for full autonomous driving (Level 4, no driver input required from start to finish) the car will need many more sensors and redundant systems. It is absurd that any Tesla employee would state what you describe.

My last two test drives (I've had four counting one 24 hr one with a P90DL) I left very annoyed with the two different sales people and vowed never to step back into the showroom again.

Really: you got 4 test drives and for one of them you had a $100K+ Model S in your possession for 24 hours and you are unhappy?

It is hard for me to imagine that Tesla salespeople could have been so irritating that you will not go back there after they so graciously allowed you such amazing access to their test vehicles.

 

[PaulusdB]

As a novice Tesla fan I joking suggested that their staff could use some adult supervision. But after meeting both Mr. Blankenship and Mr. Guillen, I stand corrected. It comes with the territory, apparantly. Maybe the s/w department, though....

 

[speedygonzalez]

Mixed bag. Keep in mind that many of these showroom staff are young kids and very excited about representing a cool product. I've had fairly knowledgeable ones to clueless ones (likely because they were new). Have not met one that knows everything. But I do not expect them to know everything, as long as they know more than I do after my research. However, when you are looking at $150K cars, I expect you to know everything, if only to make me feel better about the purchase.

 

[msnow]

Mixed bag. Keep in mind that many of these showroom staff are young kids and very excited about representing a cool product. I've had fairly knowledgeable ones to clueless ones (likely because they were new). Have not met one that knows everything. But I do not expect them to know everything, as long as they know more than I do after my research. However, when you are looking at $150K cars, I expect you to know everything, if only to make me feel better about the purchase.

Right but that doesn't excuse making stuff up like "Tesla is fully autonomous".

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

My experience has mostly been like this, but keep in mind it's been over a year since I ordered. The demands on the sales people are way higher now.

Pre-Sales -> Hit and miss. Some sales people were more knowledgeable than others. Could have used some improvement, but was understandable since they were expanding so rapidly.

Pre-Delivery Post Sales -> Mostly a failure to be honest. They basically dropped the ball and didn't handle that part at all up to expectations. The expectations of being told where the car was in the production process, and when the delivery would happen. My car instead was stuck in some limbo with an unresponsive sales person.

Delivery - pretty solid, and no major complaints. Was fun. I only found a few minor things to gripe about.

The Tesla Store - Completely and utterly an F. More than once they claimed something was in stock when it wasn't. They never bothered to tried to fix a problem either. For a fun time ask them about touch up Paint for the new blue that has been the new blue for a really long time.

Service - Definitely an A so far.

As long as the car remains as reliable as it has been then I can't say I care much about any of these.

 

[msnow]

My experience has mostly been like this, but keep in mind it's been over a year since I ordered. The demands on the sales people are way higher now.

Pre-Sales -> Hit and miss. Some sales people were more knowledgeable than others. Could have used some improvement, but was understandable since they were expanding so rapidly.

Pre-Delivery Post Sales -> Mostly a failure to be honest. They basically dropped the ball and didn't handle that part at all up to expectations. The expectations of being told where the car was in the production process, and when the delivery would happen. My car instead was stuck in some limbo with an unresponsive sales person.

Delivery - pretty solid, and no major complaints. Was fun. I only found a few minor things to gripe about.

The Tesla Store - Completely and utterly an F. More than once they claimed something was in stock when it wasn't. They never bothered to tried to fix a problem either. For a fun time ask them about touch up Paint for the new blue that has been the new blue for a really long time.

Service - Definitely an A so far.

As long as the car remains as reliable as it has been then I can't say I care much about any of these.

Down here there's at least a two month wait for service and even after that wait your lucky to get a Tesla loaner. Also, the techs don't have deep knowledge so a lot of questions are done between the tech and Fremont engineering via email but they aren't allowed to share the responses and try the best they can to explain something to the customer that they themselves don't understand. I understand that they want the SvC to be the face to the customer but they don't always have the tools, knowlege or resources. The communication isn't very well organized.

 

[Az_Rael]

Yesterday I went on my very first test drive at the Burbank store. I don't know if the salesperson said anything outright wrong, but she did give a poor demo of AP for me. I am sort of familiar with AP from the discussions here, but hadn't ever seen it in action or paid attention to the nitty gritty of how to set the various functions.

We got up onto the 5 in slow bumper to bumper traffic. I asked to see an AP demo, and she instructed me to pull back on the stalk twice (that was the extent of any AP explanation, BTW). The car immediately surged forward towards the car in front of me (I had left a large gap) which surprised me and made me immediately hit my brakes to disengage the system. Since I had been following here, I figured out that TACC was set to 65 even though traffic was moving like 20. I asked her how to reset the max cruise speed so it wouldn't surge when I engaged AP, and she didn't seem to understand my issue and just told me to pull back the stalk twice again. I did, and the car surged forward, again. I reacted by braking, again. She then started talking about setting the following distance for the car in front, and I think she set it longer (I wasn't watching). I closed the gap to a car manually and engaged AP again. This time I was within range, and the car didn't surge. But I then managed to disengage Autosteer since I was still so nervous about the prior two events. She did quickly spot that (kudos), and we started again. I finally managed to get full AP engaged and let it drive for a little bit, but I was thoroughly unnerved by the system at that point vs completely sold.

I had been previously on the fence about waiting for an AP CPO to come out or maybe buying a 60 new, but now I am back to wanting a regular old S85 CPO and saving my money. So, she inadvertently saved me money, which probably isn't Tesla's long term intent .

 

[mblakele]

Yesterday I went on my very first test drive at the Burbank store. I don't know if the salesperson said anything outright wrong, but she did give a poor demo of AP for me. I am sort of familiar with AP from the discussions here, but hadn't ever seen it in action or paid attention to the nitty gritty of how to set the various functions.

We got up onto the 5 in slow bumper to bumper traffic. I asked to see an AP demo, and she instructed me to pull back on the stalk twice (that was the extent of any AP explanation, BTW). The car immediately surged forward towards the car in front of me (I had left a large gap) which surprised me and made me immediately hit my brakes to disengage the system. Since I had been following here, I figured out that TACC was set to 65 even though traffic was moving like 20. I asked her how to reset the max cruise speed so it wouldn't surge when I engaged AP, and she didn't seem to understand my issue and just told me to pull back the stalk twice again. I did, and the car surged forward, again. I reacted by braking, again. She then started talking about setting the following distance for the car in front, and I think she set it longer (I wasn't watching). I closed the gap to a car manually and engaged AP again. This time I was within range, and the car didn't surge. But I then managed to disengage Autosteer since I was still so nervous about the prior two events. She did quickly spot that (kudos), and we started again. I finally managed to get full AP engaged and let it drive for a little bit, but I was thoroughly unnerved by the system at that point vs completely sold.

I had been previously on the fence about waiting for an AP CPO to come out or maybe buying a 60 new, but now I am back to wanting a regular old S85 CPO and saving my money. So, she inadvertently saved me money, which probably isn't Tesla's long term intent .

That doesn't really matter. Buying a pre-AP 85 will enable someone else to buy an AP car. Eventually you may find yourself in an AP car too.

Anyway the manual answers your question on p68:

When driving at your desired speed, set the cruising speed by moving the cruise control lever up or down ​

That is, moving the cruise control lever up or down will engage it and set the speed. I rarely use that feature myself. In your situation and with recent 7.1 updates (no 8 yet here, alas) I'd let it surge — while covering the brake just in case. But I can understand why you might not want to do that on a test drive.

 

[msnow]

Yesterday I went on my very first test drive at the Burbank store. I don't know if the salesperson said anything outright wrong, but she did give a poor demo of AP for me. I am sort of familiar with AP from the discussions here, but hadn't ever seen it in action or paid attention to the nitty gritty of how to set the various functions.

We got up onto the 5 in slow bumper to bumper traffic. I asked to see an AP demo, and she instructed me to pull back on the stalk twice (that was the extent of any AP explanation, BTW). The car immediately surged forward towards the car in front of me (I had left a large gap) which surprised me and made me immediately hit my brakes to disengage the system. Since I had been following here, I figured out that TACC was set to 65 even though traffic was moving like 20. I asked her how to reset the max cruise speed so it wouldn't surge when I engaged AP, and she didn't seem to understand my issue and just told me to pull back the stalk twice again. I did, and the car surged forward, again. I reacted by braking, again. She then started talking about setting the following distance for the car in front, and I think she set it longer (I wasn't watching). I closed the gap to a car manually and engaged AP again. This time I was within range, and the car didn't surge. But I then managed to disengage Autosteer since I was still so nervous about the prior two events. She did quickly spot that (kudos), and we started again. I finally managed to get full AP engaged and let it drive for a little bit, but I was thoroughly unnerved by the system at that point vs completely sold.

I had been previously on the fence about waiting for an AP CPO to come out or maybe buying a 60 new, but now I am back to wanting a regular old S85 CPO and saving my money. So, she inadvertently saved me money, which probably isn't Tesla's long term intent .

TACC is worth the price of admission. You'll want that. Too bad you didn't get to test AP the right way.

 

[Az_Rael]

That doesn't really matter. Buying a pre-AP 85 will enable someone else to buy an AP car. Eventually you may find yourself in an AP car too.

I agree, but as an investor, I would like Tesla to sell as many NEW cars as possible, since I assume the margins are better on those vs the CPOs. Tesla missed a chance to make me fall in love with a new one and want to stretch my budget so I could have one.

The rest of the sales pitch was very low key, BTW. I think the assumption was that I would be blown away with EV driving, that not much actual "selling" of the features needed to happen. I am a Volt driver (which I mentioned at the start of the test drive), so the differential of driving wasn't that significant for me. I was already used to smooth acceleration with lots of low end torque and quiet driving as well as regen on the "go" pedal. I still liked the car a lot because I was getting creature comforts back like power memory seats, and more acceleration at high speeds, but I was a bit surprised to find I wasn't overwhelmed by the driving experience and ready to buy one tomorrow. Maybe the Burbank test drive route was a factor since you never get a spot to open up the car and stretch its legs. Driving a model s through busy city streets is not much different than driving a Volt through busy city streets.

Don't get me wrong, it's a VERY nice EV, and I am buying it since no one else wants to make a long range EV with luxury appointments, but I do wonder what the field will look like in 5 years once the other brands jump in.

 

[number12]

I was told by my previous OA that high amp charger option was a nicer cable and HPWC was only for looks...

 

[ecarfan]

I was told by my previous OA that high amp charger option was a nicer cable and HPWC was only for looks...

You mean the person who said that thought that the HPWC unit was not capable of charging any faster than a standard 40A NEMA 14-50 outlet?

A "nicer cable"? Sheesh. Tesla needs to train those kids better. It's really not that hard to learn the features of the cars and the basics of charging them.

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

Really: you got 4 test drives and for one of them you had a $100K+ Model S in your possession for 24 hours and you are unhappy?

It is hard for me to imagine that Tesla salespeople could have been so irritating that you will not go back there after they so graciously allowed you such amazing access to their test vehicles.

Everything was cool up until the last two test drives. The car I had for 24 hrs had $140,000 sticker price. They even said it was OK to let my 15 year old drive it. When the new 60 kWh came out I started to get serious about buying new. Before that, my plan was to get a CPO once they came down to around $40,000. I've talked to other people at Tesla about the experience I had with the my third test drive. The salesperson is notoriously pushy, but apparently sells a lot of cars, so management thinks it's OK.