An important dynamic to the "demand issues" that is getting so much air time, both in the media and here, is the larger industry context. I don't just mean % gain / loss in units sold. I mean the money and energy invested by each company in order to acquire the demand that they have.
Up until recently it would be reasonable to describe Tesla's sales strategy as "anti-sales". The company had such a long backlog that going out of their way to not stimulate demand was a good idea. That shows up in constantly increasing sales prices, lack of test drive vehicles at stores, and no inventory at stores for immediate delivery.
Meanwhile the competition has not been raising sales prices constantly (though some models, especially when new, went through a buy-flip stage), have plenty of test drive vehicles available, and maintain inventory for immediate delivery. Lots of inventory so you can pick and choose. Note that I consider the ICEV / entire vehicle market to be the competition - I realize that a lot of these market characteristics are specific to ICEV units.
Competition spends quite a lot of money on advertising - Tesla spends ~0.
Product placements in TV / movies are paid for, vs. free.
Tesla has so many levers to pull in order to juice demand, and all of them are simply taking a few steps away from anti-selling.
#1 - discounts / price drops. And with IRA / tax credits returning, Tesla might even be able to raise prices again by $3-5k or so, and still have more than adequate demand to feed the 50%+ annual growth.
#1b - freebie / reduced cost options. Miles of supercharging, free months of FSD, etc..
#2 - I don't have numbers but a big chunk of the new car market is for immediate purchase. Something happens and somebody finds themselves in need of a new car, now. Tesla has been effectively closed out of this market for years. Instead Tesla buyers today need to plan for their delivery months in advance. Get the current lease timed so that its finished just about when the new Tesla arrives, etc.. So build up some inventory, in an amount that Tesla can monitor and continuously adjust in order to move some of the order book / production queue into on hand inventory.
#3 - Use some of those inventory cars to also provide test drives. Tesla buyers today are dependent on existing customers to see / taste / touch / feel / experience what these things are like. At least last I knew and talked to somebody here in the Portland, OR area, Tesla had made the decision to clear out all of the test drive cars. They were getting feedback from people that had been waiting for many months for their cars, and seeing test drive cars. Those things slowed down their own delivery, as well as generated more demand that Tesla couldn't fill. SO if there really is an actual demand problem then use some of that immediate delivery inventory for test drives - do some selling!
#4 - Advertise! OMG. Tesla doesn't need to do traditional auto advertising. They could do an ad (or a series) with a focus on road trips and super charging for instance. More broadly ads that are more focused on education about EV ownership in general, and how Teslas provide the superior EV ownership experience.
#5 - Add a (small) PR department. Really more of a focus on providing a point of contact for the media to ask for quotes, and to provide some degree of company input. It doesn't need to be staffed or operated in a traditional PR department sense - just focus on the particularly bad PR things and lessen their impact.
If Tesla turned on all of those spigots and were selling their vehicles in anything like the fashion the rest of the industry, does anybody doubt the reckless unit growth we'd see? (not a typo
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