How long will Tesla's current retail model be feasible?

[jerry33]

It seems to me that the longer people wait for the car, the more likely they will be to research the car. This will avoid a bunch of buyer's remorse, or just plain "I didn't realize what I purchased" as in "OMG, the brakes feel different". When I was growing up, I recall people saying they would never purchase a car with power brakes because they took a test drive and almost put little Johnny through the window (even though they were told to step very lightly on the brakes). Of course, if power brakes were a new thing today, they would never be allowed because they feel too different.

All in all, I figure that that the few customers they lose to the wait time will be more than made up by the number of happy customers who are happy because they understand what they are purchasing.

 

[Cobos]

I'm pretty sure VW at least in Europe builds all their cars to order. That might include Audi as well. They are easily comparable in size to GM or Ford and Europe is diverse and large enough that the logistics of delivering cars in Europe is similar to delivering in the US. VW seems to be doing fine, a collegue of mine just bought a new VW Golf, to replace his broken old Golf. He got a "free" loan of a new VW Polo for the value of the tradein of his broken Golf while he is waiting for his car to be built. That I think became a 3 month wait or so. And this is pretty normal for Norway, where standard wait times is 2-3 months unless you buy one of the few cars the dealer has inside his shop. Usually 2-3 cars of each model that are demo-cars or show cars and that they can sell, but usually like to keep for that purpose.

Cobos