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Opinion: Bottleneck won't just be parts or production

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In addition to parts suppliers and overall production, I have always thought delivery itself will be a key bottleneck as well.

The fact is car delivery is a pretty complex process. I think everyone has been in dealers where we shook hands with the salesman and signed term sheets, agreed to everything, when the sun was still high in the sky. Yet by the time we actually drove the car off the dealer lot, it was like 8-9pm. This is because buying a car requires tons of paperwork, for the dealership, bank, between you, dealership and bank, and various government paperwork, etc.

The thing is, Tesla just doesn't have enough people doing that when volume is expected to go up like 5x with Model 3. You can't expect the same number of delivery and finance specialists to do 5x the deliveries. That just doesn't work...

I have long expected that this will turn into a major bottleneck. Your car may have been produced and shipped, but it may sit in the Tesla store for weeks because of a backlog of deliveries before you.
 
Form-filling and signing doesn't require a lot of staff time.
Most of the necessary information can be provided in advance, online.
You should just need to sign a few times on the day and you don't need the undivided attention of a staff member to do it.

Tesla has already said they're working on shortening the delivery process by use of a video so that it's a 5-minute handover.
 
Form-filling and signing doesn't require a lot of staff time.
Most of the necessary information can be provided in advance, online.
You should just need to sign a few times on the day and you don't need the undivided attention of a staff member to do it.

Tesla has already said they're working on shortening the delivery process by use of a video so that it's a 5-minute handover.

This sounds good theoretically; hopefully it really works.

I took delivery of a 2015 Model S a couple years ago. Yes, the delivery itself took only 10 mins, since everything was already signed before delivery. However that doesn't mean it didn't take Tesla staff a lot of time, and me a LOT more time to do them beforehand.

And I had to do more government paperwork after the delivery as well... It wasn't as pleasant as buying a BMW although theoretically the amount of time spent at delivery was really short. I would rather just spend the 6 hours at the store/dealership and get everything done in one go without having to call many different parties multiple times, email multiple parties many times and then having to make personal trips to county tax office and DMV... Took way way longer in total than at traditional dealerships.
 
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I think everyone has been in dealers where we shook hands with the salesman and signed term sheets, agreed to everything, when the sun was still high in the sky.

Not me. But then I have never started with the floor salesman. (Price was negotiated over the phone the day before.) With computers and a good credit rating, the process itself is rather simple, at least in California. I purchased an Audi last year and the 'credit' guy just verified my name and address and started printing forms. He printed, I signed. He ran my credit card for the deposit. Easy peasy. (We spend way more time talking about kids, high schools, and college prep than we did with any potential upwell -- 'not thank you, not interested'.)
 
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This sounds good theoretically; hopefully it really works.

I took delivery of a 2015 Model S a couple years ago. Yes, the delivery itself took only 10 mins, since everything was already signed before delivery. However that doesn't mean it didn't take Tesla staff a lot of time, and me a LOT more time to do them beforehand.

And I had to do more government paperwork after the delivery as well... It wasn't as pleasant as buying a BMW although theoretically the amount of time spent at delivery was really short. I would rather just spend the 6 hours at the store/dealership and get everything done in one go without having to call many different parties multiple times, email multiple parties many times and then having to make personal trips to county tax office and DMV... Took way way longer in total than at traditional dealerships.

That's because you live in North Carolina. In states that actually allow Tesla to do normal business instead of paying homage to car dealerships it isn't that way.
 
I took them about 1.5 hours to deliver my car (the delivery pic is my avatar) which included about 50 minutes of training and explaining things missing from the punch-list. It's been five years, so I think it's completely within the realm of possibility that they've improved the process.
 
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In addition to parts suppliers and overall production, I have always thought delivery itself will be a key bottleneck as well.

The fact is car delivery is a pretty complex process. I think everyone has been in dealers where we shook hands with the salesman and signed term sheets, agreed to everything, when the sun was still high in the sky. Yet by the time we actually drove the car off the dealer lot, it was like 8-9pm. This is because buying a car requires tons of paperwork, for the dealership, bank, between you, dealership and bank, and various government paperwork, etc.

The thing is, Tesla just doesn't have enough people doing that when volume is expected to go up like 5x with Model 3. You can't expect the same number of delivery and finance specialists to do 5x the deliveries. That just doesn't work...

I have long expected that this will turn into a major bottleneck. Your car may have been produced and shipped, but it may sit in the Tesla store for weeks because of a backlog of deliveries before you.

Oh look you have something less than 100% positive to say about Tesla and you're getting a bunch of disagrees or arguments. I'm sorry about that OP. You have a valid point. Yeah, in the same way that I didn't expect them to be on time with deliveries I also have my doubts about the whole "5 minute deliveries" that I remember reading about a few months ago.

For now, at least, they're delivering so few Model 3's and the ramp is slower than announced, that I'd hope they have the time to staff up as needed.
 
Tesla delivery is different than other dealers because they don’t have the phalanx of sales people trying to sell you everything from paint and underbody protection, to maintenance plans, and gap insurance. That’s all settled before you arrive at the service center.

Picked up our MS in Dec 2016 and the whole process took less than 45 mins: car was parked outside in the delivery area, we inspected it, delivery person synced our phones, took a family photo, showed us the basics, answered questions, walked inside to sign about 4 documents, received a gift bag, and drove off with big smiles.

It could have been quicker if we weren’t so giddy.

BTW -- yes, we did find some cosmetic issues which were take care of at the same time, and at a follow up appointment.
 
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Oh look you have something less than 100% positive to say about Tesla and you're getting a bunch of disagrees or arguments. I'm sorry about that OP. You have a valid point.
He may have a valid point, or he may be completely off the mark - right now he’s just putting forth unsubstantiated conjecture. People are free to disagree with him without being labeled a fanboy.

Not to mention, the opposing opinions in this thread have been very mild, polite, and have included actual experiences from current Tesla owners.
 
He may have a valid point, or he may be completely off the mark - right now he’s just putting forth unsubstantiated conjecture. People are free to disagree with him without being labeled a fanboy.

Not to mention, the opposing opinions in this thread have been very mild, polite, and have included actual experiences from current Tesla owners.
Who's in for getting t-shirts made? :p

TMC-Model 3 forum: "putting forth unsubstantiated conjecture since 2015" (or whatever year we want to put as technically the 3 has been in the master plan for much longer than that.)
 
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We took delivery of an X in May. About 10 other cars being delivered at the same time. All-in we were there for less than an hour with the majority of that time spent on the training (done as a group). Took me 5 mins to inspect the car (had a list of things to look for which makes it very fast + almost nothing was wrong with the car), 10 mins of answering our questions, and a few mins of taking pictures.

Signing paperwork took 30 secs, with the vast majority of paperwork handled online beforehand.

If we wanted we could have taken delivery in 5 mins.

I assume the model 3 delvery process would be the same.