I personally think the online only model will be a massive fail. Here are some of the concerns that I have:
1. Where will customer go when they need to trade in their old car?
2. Who is going to handle the paper work with licensing/ registration/ loan and leasing documents from bank etc? Customer and Tesla have to mail this back and forth to each other through UPS or Fedex now?
3. Where will customer go to pick up their car? Tesla will deliver the car to customer at their residential address? If it is the case, it would end up to be hugely more expensive than the store model.
4. For customers who has never heard of Tesla (there are still tons of them), where will they go to see or sit inside a Tesla? Moving store away from shopping center/ high-foot traffic area will only make the brand awareness get worse over time.
5. Given the occasional horrible Tesla customer services that you hear all the time, even at its current store model (email being ignored, phone calls are answered but never get followed up and never do things that are promised), what will the online-sale experience be like? many times worse than the current situation?
1. Where will customer go when they need to trade in their old car?
2. Who is going to handle the paper work with licensing/ registration/ loan and leasing documents from bank etc? Customer and Tesla have to mail this back and forth to each other through UPS or Fedex now?
3. Where will customer go to pick up their car? Tesla will deliver the car to customer at their residential address? If it is the case, it would end up to be hugely more expensive than the store model.
4. For customers who has never heard of Tesla (there are still tons of them), where will they go to see or sit inside a Tesla? Moving store away from shopping center/ high-foot traffic area will only make the brand awareness get worse over time.
5. Given the occasional horrible Tesla customer services that you hear all the time, even at its current store model (email being ignored, phone calls are answered but never get followed up and never do things that are promised), what will the online-sale experience be like? many times worse than the current situation?