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Wiki Model S Delivery Update

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What bugs me (and it's not just a tesla thing but when anyone treats customers similarly), is that Tesla seems to constantly flirt with the risk of annoying their Sig evangelists

There are also people like myself who read these forums frequently and can see past the excuse-making for Tesla to understand what's going on. Tesla is not meeting delivery dates and customers are upset. You have every right to be upset, and no it's not your fault for 'setting your expectations too high'. Your expectations were set by Tesla, regardless of how anyone tries to spin it.

If Tesla can't accomplish simple things like getting their customer reps on the same page with delivery time-frames, or in communicating delays to their customers, I don't see how they're going to build quality vehicles in volume...at least not by the end of the year.

Tesla seems very disorganized, and in the last few months there seems to be a pattern of letdowns (beginning with that ridiculous June event). For a 'non-evangelist' it's a big turn-off. I'm sure I'm not the only one observing this...it's very plain to see.
 
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I can wait a month or even two more months if it means that Tesla is working hard to get my car to a perfect finish.
I appreciate the fact that they are not hesitating to delay output for the provision of quality for their customers.
They will be rolling the cars off the line soon enough. Let them do it right!
 
Aside from the 'Sig evangelists', there are most likely people like myself who read these forums frequently and can see past the excuse-making for Tesla to understand what it's going on.

Which "excuse-making"? My point is that you can still be happy about getting a great car. You don't need to exercise your "right to upset". And post it 10 times in a row. Wrong time, wrong place, IMHO.
 
There are also people like myself who read these forums frequently and can see past the excuse-making for Tesla to understand what's going on. Tesla is not meeting delivery dates and customers are upset. You have every right to be upset, and no it's not your fault for 'setting your expectations too high'. Your expectations were set by Tesla, regardless of how anyone tries to spin it.

If Tesla can't accomplish simple things like getting their customer reps on the same page with delivery time-frames, or in communicating delays to their customers, I don't see how they're going to build quality vehicles in volume...at least not by the end of the year.

Tesla seems very disorganized, and in the last few months there seems to be a pattern of letdowns (beginning with that ridiculous June event). For a 'non-evangelist' it's a big turn-off. I'm sure I'm not the only one observing this...it's very plain to see.

This is silly. Tesla has not missed my delivery date. I am SSL 141, and I haven't been promised a delivery date, so there is no delivery date to miss. When I signed on the dotted line, they told me september ballpark. If september comes and I haven't heard anything I will be disappointed. I expect some communication by then. If september passes and I still don't have my car, I still won't have missed a delivery date, but I will expect some explanation and a new estimate.

I don't see a pattern of letdowns at all. I didn't see anything ridiculous about the June event - they delivered cars to happy customers. I was very happy with the test drive event, it answered a great many questions and I got to see multiple colors and interiors. I understand that they are likely working through supplier issues and production issues.

I work for a company that delivers products only when they are ready and meet our standards for quality, it is what our customers expect. It's done when it's done. I am anxious for my car, but so far I have little to complain about.
 
I personally am not disappointed or angry at Tesla missing any dates yet, as they have not. It all comes down to communication. My expectation is that as a Silicon Valley car company they should be adept at using e-mail or their own website to keep customers current on the status of the production of their car. This is where they have dropped the ball. It seems that the only communication they have provided to anyone is when we, the customer, reach out to them. If they are trying to set the bar high and emulate great "customer service" car companies like Lexus they need to improve their game.
 
Yep. Signature owners and early production owners need to remember that the company is in the early stages of trying to ramp up production. They don't know how fast that will go. All their internal processes are changing as they scale up. No one knows for sure if they can hit their targets until they do it and prove that the quality holds up. And at this stage, if they delay the ramp by a week, it'll affect the delivery of low # vehicles. Whereas when you get to >5000, that delay will be noise.

So if I were Sig or low-numbered P, I'd expect a wide delivery window. It wouldn't surprise me if the delivery window slipped. I wouldn't expect much communication because there isn't a whole lot they can say with high certainty right now. Other than "we don't really know and here's our best guess". Which is what a wide delivery window pretty much says.

I've got a ~9000 number. I expect by the time they get around to me, they'll know precisely what their build rate is and will be able to give me a pretty accurate window. But I won't get my car until spring at the earliest.

If you're unhappy with the lack of precision in your delivery window and lack of communication, you could always defer. By the time your number rolls around again, I'm sure Tesla will have their processes locked and loaded.
 
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Yep. Signature owners and early production owners need to remember that the company is in the early stages of trying to ramp up production. They don't know how fast that will go. All their internal processes are changing as they scale up. No one does for sure if they can hit their targets until they do it and prove that the quality holds up. And at this stage, if they delay the ramp by a week, it'll affect the delivery of low # vehicles. Whereas when you get to >5000, that delay will be noise.

So if I were Sig or low-numbered P, I'd expect a wide delivery window. It wouldn't surprise me if the delivery window slipped. I wouldn't expect much communication because there isn't a whole lot they can say with high certainty right now. Other than "we don't really know and here's our best guess". Which is what a wide delivery window pretty much says.

I've got a ~9000 number. I expect by the time they get around to me, they'll know precisely what their build rate is and will be able to give me a pretty accurate window. But I won't get my car until spring at the earliest.

If you're unhappy with the lack of precision in your delivery window and lack of communication, you could always defer. By the time your number rolls around again, I'm sure Tesla will have their processes locked and loaded.

Well said!
 
I personally am not disappointed or angry at Tesla missing any dates yet, as they have not. It all comes down to communication. My expectation is that as a Silicon Valley car company they should be adept at using e-mail or their own website to keep customers current on the status of the production of their car. This is where they have dropped the ball. It seems that the only communication they have provided to anyone is when we, the customer, reach out to them. If they are trying to set the bar high and emulate great "customer service" car companies like Lexus they need to improve their game.

Couldn't have said it better!
 
Personally, I think that the Get Amped tour means that a large number of the people that would normally be in doing this customer communication are working on promoting the tour or on tour. They are just spread too thin, and some of the individual communication has gone by the way-side. I think this is temporary.
 
Personally, I think that the Get Amped tour means that a large number of the people that would normally be in doing this customer communication are working on promoting the tour or on tour. They are just spread too thin, and some of the individual communication has gone by the way-side. I think this is temporary.

While what you say is certainly plausible, the truth is something not quite as benign - while the Tesla employees are always polite and engaging, it often has taken extraordinary effort to get a response to an inquiry - e.g. talking to multiple people, climbing up the org chart, etc. Now, my guess is that once production is ramped, most common questions will be clearly answered by FAQs, this forum, Tesla's website, and similar resources. The issue for some of us is that we have been waiting for years - some at or more than three years since putting $40k down as a deposit on a sig - and there are still a number of questions unanswered even as deliveries are beginning. I'm not royally pissed about this and recognize that my experience is not as a first adopter (although plenty of early adoption) - so I understand that there will be fixes and that version 2.0 will be better than my version 1.0. I can live with that easily. But what frustrates is the lack of high-touch for someone spending 100k+ and helping to get the company off the ground (even as we all have our own selfish reasons for doing so). Bear in mind that most of us "first adopters" are spending a multiple of what we spent on previous vehicles, are traveling on unfamiliar ground, and are still unsure of exactly what we are buying (there isn't even a manual to look at yet!). I've driven the vehicle. It's fun to drive and if widely adopted will help the environment and our national security. All wonderful things. Tesla has billed itself as a premium car company with a vehicle competitive with BMW, Mercedes, et.al. On the engineering, they are there. On the service side, not quite yet. That doesn't mean that people should act like petulant children - but on the other hand, there is nothing wrong with holding Tesla to the higher standard of service that we think the vehicles and customers deserve.


I admit that my good-natured impatience is growing with the square of the time to delivery. But it's not unreasonable to expect premium service for premium dollars. Hopefully, my head won't explode before the car arrives.:scared:
 
Yeah, I'm not saying that you guys have no right to be upset about the lack of communication. I'm just saying that rather than jump to the conclusion that they don't care about their customers, we might consider that they are a (relatively) small start-up company that is spread too thin right now.

No reason to assume malice; assume they are doing their best, but that doesn't always mean they get it right.
 
I admit that my good-natured impatience is growing with the square of the time to delivery. But it's not unreasonable to expect premium service for premium dollars. Hopefully, my head won't explode before the car arrives.:scared:

That may be reasonable, or not, at the end of the day you have to look at the information you already have, and that's probably more than Tesla would write you in any email they might send at this point. You got an update 11 days ago. Plus, as was said above, maybe in a "couple of days" they have a "tighter" timeline for the low #s. That still leaves the rest unknown. As I said, they are in a phase were they have to deal with the unexpected, and they know if they can increase production only by the time they can actually do so. I couldn't count the number of times I had to wait for the delivery of something I was anxiously waiting for, and didn't know when it would come. Even from long-time well-established companies I'm not used to getting better information than Tesla is giving out. Just look at the people who are currently waiting for the Canon 1dx. For many of them it's the primary tool they need to do their job, and they usually have no idea where in the line they are when they order. Canon is *not* telling them on a daily basis how their production and deliveries are progressing. They know much less than you, after the product was delayed several times for over half a year, I think, often for unspecified reasons.
 
That may be reasonable, or not, at the end of the day you have to look at the information you already have, and that's probably more than Tesla would write you in any email they might send at this point. You got an update 11 days ago. Plus, as was said above, maybe in a "couple of days" they have a "tighter" timeline for the low #s. That still leaves the rest unknown. As I said, they are in a phase were they have to deal with the unexpected, and they know if they can increase production only by the time they can actually do so. I couldn't count the number of times I had to wait for the delivery of something I was anxiously waiting for, and didn't know when it would come. Even from long-time well-established companies I'm not used to getting better information than Tesla is giving out. Just look at the people who are currently waiting for the Canon 1dx. For many of them it's the primary tool they need to do their job, and they usually have no idea where in the line they are when they order. Canon is *not* telling them on a daily basis how their production and deliveries are progressing. They know much less than you, after the product was delayed several times for over half a year, I think, often for unspecified reasons.

Agree with this, however at the very least Tesla should be on the same page for estimates. A daily email should go out to all of their sales reps showing the COMPANY's estimated delivery dates, that the sales folks can then pass on...but it seems like every Tesla rep has a unique estimate, which is uncool.
 
A daily email should go out to all of their sales reps showing the COMPANY's estimated delivery dates, that the sales folks can then pass on...

That would be a crazy amount of work; how often do you want the sales folks to be contacting you?

I do agree that Tesla reps should not be handing out ad hoc guesses though - how often do they feel pressured into saying something/anything because they've got persistent, impatient TMC-er's begging for news?
 
That would be a crazy amount of work; how often do you want the sales folks to be contacting you?

I do agree that Tesla reps should not be handing out ad hoc guesses though - how often do they feel pressured into saying something/anything because they've got persistent, impatient TMC-er's begging for news?

I think you misunderstand. I'm saying an email should go from Tesla corporate to the Tesla stores (reps) so that THEY are all on the same page. That way, when we the customers ask them an expected delivery date, they can give a consistent answer. It would just be a minor tweak of a few numbers from one day to the next that probably wouldn't take more than a minute per day.
 
I think you misunderstand. I'm saying an email should go from Tesla corporate to the Tesla stores (reps) so that THEY are all on the same page. That way, when we the customers ask them an expected delivery date, they can give a consistent answer. It would just be a minor tweak of a few numbers from one day to the next that probably wouldn't take more than a minute per day.

There should be a real-time look up for anyone in sales/stores with your res# and you get the same (correct) answer from whom ever!
 
Yeah, I'm not saying that you guys have no right to be upset about the lack of communication. I'm just saying that rather than jump to the conclusion that they don't care about their customers, we might consider that they are a (relatively) small start-up company that is spread too thin right now.

No reason to assume malice; assume they are doing their best, but that doesn't always mean they get it right.

I think you have an excellent point. I have had excellent communication from my rep. I sent an e-mail to my rep on a Saturday night at 9:30 pm Pacific time and I had a response within 5 minutes even though the rep was out of town for a test drive event. I really didn't expect him to even look at the e-mail until Monday morning. My issue, which was a minor modification on my MVPA, was resolved first thing Monday morning and I had a newly revised copy waiting for me when I checked my morning mail.
 
There should be a real-time look up for anyone in sales/stores with your res# and you get the same (correct) answer from whom ever!

Which materialized out of thin-air while they were grabbing a quick 3.5 hours of sleep!

I'm sure they've got a long list of things like this that they would like to have for Christmas. I'm sure GeorgeB has a monstrous list of ways to make the process better, more transparent, but that stuff takes money, training, implementation time, time to work out the kinks...

Remember, when Elon canned the company Chess Club because there was "no time for chess"?

This type of stuff will come, but it's kinda a Chicken-and-Egg problem. You can't spend all your time and money developing streamlined processes and tools, then have no money or time left to build your product. The same is true the other way around, but the product brings in revenue, and the other stuff costs money. You have to strike the right balance, and in a startup that has limited cash reserves and whose profitability is dependent on production capacity (not inefficient communication or reservation holder satisfaction), the product has got to win out.

So be upset, that's the only way that it is going to get better; but have a little empathy and keep that in mind when you are choosing the words you are going to use to express your dissatisfaction.

At least that's what I'll do.
 
I think you misunderstand. I'm saying an email should go from Tesla corporate to the Tesla stores (reps) so that THEY are all on the same page. That way, when we the customers ask them an expected delivery date, they can give a consistent answer. It would just be a minor tweak of a few numbers from one day to the next that probably wouldn't take more than a minute per day.

a) Imagine how many calls are they going to get every day if everyone hears that there are daily updates to the sales reps.
b) If you didn't call them regularly you'd never know if/when your date changed.

A crazy amount of work, and what for?

There should be a real-time look up for anyone in sales/stores with your res# and you get the same (correct) answer from whom ever!

How often do you think the average TMC-er will call to see if their status changed? Daily?
 
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