I think the S and X are still hit or miss. My personal experiences with the company Model S (2013 model) and my Model S (2016 model) have been positive.
That's why it is so important that they take their time right now. Every 'new' car manufacturer will have these types of issues, the one more than the other. There is no fixed time schedule for the learning curve, they'll just have to go through the motions and improve every day of every week of every month for years to come.
Note that Elon said the design studio was for models to be configured *after* the current PuP cars. From subsequent tweets he said that you don't need a design studio to choose color and wheels. So, the design studio is not a blocker to early customer shipments.
I think design studio is still needed for the 1st delivery PuP cars. There are still 100s of Ks of orders in that group, I don't see a way Tesla can handle that many orders without an automated interface like the design studio.
Tesla gets a bit of a pass because they are building highly desirable products that you can't get anywhere else. While they've made some mistakes and have their share of problems, people are willing to give them a pass because the end product is worth it.
Don't they already have some sort of online interface for ordering Model 3? I swear we've seen screenshots of it (hard to keep track of what is real and what is just a mockup made by a random person). I was under the impression that when Elon was talking about a design studio, he meant a full-fledged one that includes many various options (as opposed to the current one that only allows for a few choices).
Agreed, as long as the delay in Tesla's schedule is much smaller than the lead Tesla has on competitors, it won't matter. If BMW for some miraculous reason starts selling a bunch of 3-series BEV with 200-300mi range and costs <$50K in early 2018, sure, delays in the Model 3 would matter a lot.
There is a reservation page. There is also the delivery estimate page, where you can save your preference for which delivery batch you want, choices are 1st delivery (LR RWD PuP), standard battery, and AWD. That may be what you're thinking about.
I thought that one of the employees shared screenshots of the configurator.
I mean once more options are available (Base, AWD, etc).
OK, yes the design studio for M3 exists and is open to employees, with choices for color and wheel size, and EAP/FSD SW options. My interpretation is that this design studio with these limited options will be open to non-employees in late Nov, and not one with additional options such as SR, non-PuP, etc.
My personal experience reminds me a lot of my experience with early Windows pc’s. Far too much involuntary beta testing by customers and a lot of that involves over the air updates. We all love getting updates but only if they are bullet proof and that is not happening.
