I apologize in advance for the long post. I needed something to distract my mind while I went on a long(ish) run this afternoon, and solving the great problem of the Model 3 reservation process is what my mind settled on. Here are the possible solutions that I came up with. Feel free to critique them and prove to me that I really shouldn’t try to solve any problems while I’m running in the future.
Option #1 (as of right now, this is what it seems like Tesla is going to do).
On March 31[SUP]st[/SUP], each gallery/store will start take reservations once their doors open. The obvious issue with this approach is that those galleries/stores on the East Coast will have a 3 hour head start of those on the West Coast, so even if you’re #1 in line at the Fremont factory, you may end up with reservation #2,000+ due to all the reservations that happened in the other time zones.
Option #2
Tesla creates additional reservation categories for each time zone. So, you could have RN-E (Reservation Number-East), RN-C (Reservation Number-Central), RN-M (Reservation Number-Mountain), and RN-P (Reservation Number-Pacific). The category you end up in is dependent on which time zone you reserve in. Obviously, there’s the possibility of someone reserving in the East zone, but in two years, now lives in the Pacific zone; however, these are fringe cases that could be ironed out on a case-by-case basis. This would solve the problem of East Coasters getting a 3 hour jump on those on the West.
Option #3
If Tesla doesn’t want to create additional reservation categories, I’d then bucket all galleries/stores into 3 approximately even groups based on geography (roughly all stores east of the Appalachians, all stores between the Appalachians and the Rockies, and then all stores west of the Rockies). You would then do a random lottery within each group to determine which store would get reservation spot #1, which would get reservation spot #2, etc. Given the East Coast doesn’t get as much love as Tesla (and most likely those on the West Coast will get their Model 3s first anyway), I’d say that the East Zone should get reservation #1, Central Zone get reservation #2, and the West Zone get reservation #3.
Given this approach is a bit more complicated, and I’m sure I haven’t explained it very well, here’s a simplified example. Let’s say that Tesla only has 6 stores in the US. New York and Miami in the East, Dallas and Minneapolis in the Central region, and Seattle and Los Angeles in the West. Tesla would then randomly select one store out of each region to hold position #1 in their zone. Let’s say that ends up being NY, Minneapolis, and Seattle (meaning Miami, Dallas, and LA would hold the #2 position in their respective regions). That would mean whoever was first in line at the NY store would get RN#1, the first in line in Minneapolis would get RN#2, and the first in line in Seattle would get RN#3. Then, the first person in line at the Miami, Dallas, and LA stores would get RN#4, #5, and #6, respectively. Then, the people second in line at the NY, Minneapolis, and Seattle stores would get RN#7, #8, and #9, respectively.
Ultimately, I think Option #3, while certainly the most complicated and would probably result in the most administrative overhead, would neutralize any store-by-store variances. What if one store has 5 employees taking reservations, while another only has 1? Would it be fair that someone who is #100 in line at Fremont ends up with a lower reservation number than someone who is #10 at the Santa Barbara store just because Fremont had more people on hand to process orders? What if one of the stores has a power outage or connectivity issues? What if one store is late to open? By basically pre-defining the spot each person in line at each store will get, regardless of any of these variables, I think Tesla would avoid a lot of potentially frustrated customers.
I would also release the lottery positions about 3 days before the reservation start date so people could make judgment calls based on whether they want to take a chance going to the store that holds one of the earlier lottery numbers in their region. As it stands now, I don’t know if I should head to Santana Row, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Stanford, Burlingame, Fremont, or Dublin to put down my reservation (certainly not a bad problem to have…I know some people are planning to drive 2+ hours to make their reservation).
At the end of the day, there’s certainly no perfectly equal way for Tesla to issue reservations. However, they should at least try to make the process as fair as possible for as many people as possible. To me, Option #3 fills that objective.
Then there's the whole issue of batching and people jumping in line due to a more highly optioned vehicle, so ultimately this all probably won't matter, but let's not think about that quite yet...I'll save that issue for one of my longer runs in a couple of years :wink:
Option #1 (as of right now, this is what it seems like Tesla is going to do).
On March 31[SUP]st[/SUP], each gallery/store will start take reservations once their doors open. The obvious issue with this approach is that those galleries/stores on the East Coast will have a 3 hour head start of those on the West Coast, so even if you’re #1 in line at the Fremont factory, you may end up with reservation #2,000+ due to all the reservations that happened in the other time zones.
Option #2
Tesla creates additional reservation categories for each time zone. So, you could have RN-E (Reservation Number-East), RN-C (Reservation Number-Central), RN-M (Reservation Number-Mountain), and RN-P (Reservation Number-Pacific). The category you end up in is dependent on which time zone you reserve in. Obviously, there’s the possibility of someone reserving in the East zone, but in two years, now lives in the Pacific zone; however, these are fringe cases that could be ironed out on a case-by-case basis. This would solve the problem of East Coasters getting a 3 hour jump on those on the West.
Option #3
If Tesla doesn’t want to create additional reservation categories, I’d then bucket all galleries/stores into 3 approximately even groups based on geography (roughly all stores east of the Appalachians, all stores between the Appalachians and the Rockies, and then all stores west of the Rockies). You would then do a random lottery within each group to determine which store would get reservation spot #1, which would get reservation spot #2, etc. Given the East Coast doesn’t get as much love as Tesla (and most likely those on the West Coast will get their Model 3s first anyway), I’d say that the East Zone should get reservation #1, Central Zone get reservation #2, and the West Zone get reservation #3.
Given this approach is a bit more complicated, and I’m sure I haven’t explained it very well, here’s a simplified example. Let’s say that Tesla only has 6 stores in the US. New York and Miami in the East, Dallas and Minneapolis in the Central region, and Seattle and Los Angeles in the West. Tesla would then randomly select one store out of each region to hold position #1 in their zone. Let’s say that ends up being NY, Minneapolis, and Seattle (meaning Miami, Dallas, and LA would hold the #2 position in their respective regions). That would mean whoever was first in line at the NY store would get RN#1, the first in line in Minneapolis would get RN#2, and the first in line in Seattle would get RN#3. Then, the first person in line at the Miami, Dallas, and LA stores would get RN#4, #5, and #6, respectively. Then, the people second in line at the NY, Minneapolis, and Seattle stores would get RN#7, #8, and #9, respectively.
Ultimately, I think Option #3, while certainly the most complicated and would probably result in the most administrative overhead, would neutralize any store-by-store variances. What if one store has 5 employees taking reservations, while another only has 1? Would it be fair that someone who is #100 in line at Fremont ends up with a lower reservation number than someone who is #10 at the Santa Barbara store just because Fremont had more people on hand to process orders? What if one of the stores has a power outage or connectivity issues? What if one store is late to open? By basically pre-defining the spot each person in line at each store will get, regardless of any of these variables, I think Tesla would avoid a lot of potentially frustrated customers.
I would also release the lottery positions about 3 days before the reservation start date so people could make judgment calls based on whether they want to take a chance going to the store that holds one of the earlier lottery numbers in their region. As it stands now, I don’t know if I should head to Santana Row, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Stanford, Burlingame, Fremont, or Dublin to put down my reservation (certainly not a bad problem to have…I know some people are planning to drive 2+ hours to make their reservation).
At the end of the day, there’s certainly no perfectly equal way for Tesla to issue reservations. However, they should at least try to make the process as fair as possible for as many people as possible. To me, Option #3 fills that objective.
Then there's the whole issue of batching and people jumping in line due to a more highly optioned vehicle, so ultimately this all probably won't matter, but let's not think about that quite yet...I'll save that issue for one of my longer runs in a couple of years :wink:
