RE: Tesla to close showrooms in favour of web
Discussion
its ok being negative about the future of EV's- but they are the most exciting thing to happen with motoring for the last 100 years. Honestly when you have one, drive one, all those generic 2.0 petrol/diesel lumps can be quickly forgotten.
yes I'm a petrol head, yes I love a decent engine, decent burble blah blah- but as a generic lump on wheels for sitting in traffic in, its the future.
clearly musk is some sort of bond esque evil villan, probably creaming millions off, building a space palace, but feasibly that's what you need to go up against the big giants.
yes I'm a petrol head, yes I love a decent engine, decent burble blah blah- but as a generic lump on wheels for sitting in traffic in, its the future.
clearly musk is some sort of bond esque evil villan, probably creaming millions off, building a space palace, but feasibly that's what you need to go up against the big giants.
Do they even need dealerships or sales people? A mate recently bought a model X and compared the process to be like ordering a new iPad - no test drive no negotiation on price or discount or px just tick the boxes for you spec how much memory you want etc and off you go. He said it’s completely changed how it feels buying a car - you don’t feel like you are potentially being had over because the price is the price.
I doubt he will be too pleased to see they just dropped the list price by £20k that is a rather painful kick in residuals on such an expensive purchase!
I doubt he will be too pleased to see they just dropped the list price by £20k that is a rather painful kick in residuals on such an expensive purchase!
Biggles111 said:
The real PH worthy news here is the overnight drop in the UK price of the S and X. There is a lot of discussion going on between owners as to whether this is real or if someone at Tesla forgot to include VAT, but on the face of it an S 100D ludicrous performance can be had as a custom order for £84,150 (plus cost of autopilot etc) as a custom order, when yesterday it was a £120k+ car.
People have been querying the pricing this morning and have been told it is real; as a result a number of orders have been placed.
If I didn't already own a 100D I'd be placing a deposit! Impact on residuals is not ideal, but if it gets more people into the cars (and if it is honoured by Tesla) it is a good thing long term.
Car of the people !!!People have been querying the pricing this morning and have been told it is real; as a result a number of orders have been placed.
If I didn't already own a 100D I'd be placing a deposit! Impact on residuals is not ideal, but if it gets more people into the cars (and if it is honoured by Tesla) it is a good thing long term.
Very strange that they have dropped the price so much ?
The only reason I can think of as to why they would do this is if they were struggling for sales, which would suggest that the new model is cannibalizing sales from the higher margin X and S.
Bad news for Tesla is that is the case - I thought they always said that the problems were in production and meeting demand....
The only reason I can think of as to why they would do this is if they were struggling for sales, which would suggest that the new model is cannibalizing sales from the higher margin X and S.
Bad news for Tesla is that is the case - I thought they always said that the problems were in production and meeting demand....
austinsmirk said:
its ok being negative about the future of EV's- but they are the most exciting thing to happen with motoring for the last 100 years. Honestly when you have one, drive one, all those generic 2.0 petrol/diesel lumps can be quickly forgotten.
yes I'm a petrol head, yes I love a decent engine, decent burble blah blah- but as a generic lump on wheels for sitting in traffic in, its the future.
clearly musk is some sort of bond esque evil villan, probably creaming millions off, building a space palace, but feasibly that's what you need to go up against the big giants.
And wind farms to generate all the clean pollution free electricity.yes I'm a petrol head, yes I love a decent engine, decent burble blah blah- but as a generic lump on wheels for sitting in traffic in, its the future.
clearly musk is some sort of bond esque evil villan, probably creaming millions off, building a space palace, but feasibly that's what you need to go up against the big giants.
Soon this may well be the next diesel-gate. Once we are forced to buy EV, they'll then need to build more power stations to cope with all the demand. Then give it a few years, and Global warming will be down to EV cars and the power stations used to charge them.
But then what do we do with all the batteries that will need disposing of?
Mackofthejungle said:
I don't get it... Where do I go to buy a Tesla? A website? Really? I just wouldn't..
Good luck to them, but I think they'd fair better if they joined up with an actual car dealer network. Arnold Clark Tesla. "Yep she's a real beauty sir, lovely sporty feel, no we only have them in white" etc.. Perfect.
I can get the logic behind it, especially if they are marketing after millennials and social media types who have very little knowledge or interest in car brandsGood luck to them, but I think they'd fair better if they joined up with an actual car dealer network. Arnold Clark Tesla. "Yep she's a real beauty sir, lovely sporty feel, no we only have them in white" etc.. Perfect.
I wouldn't have a problem buying a car online, I hate dealers, especially the german marques
I would have a problem with buying a second hand car from them if the process is the same that rich rebuilds went through ... No way to view the car before hand, car had issues and vanished for 3 months before being delivered ...
austinsmirk said:
its ok being negative about the future of EV's- but they are the most exciting thing to happen with motoring for the last 100 years. Honestly when you have one, drive one, all those generic 2.0 petrol/diesel lumps can be quickly forgotten.
....
Two separate things IMHO. The rise of the EV is certainly an exciting new alternative to those generic petrol/diesel cars. They are however not exciting and once you have tried the whoosh-isn't it quick button ... a few times, as a car their a little too compromised. Small hyper-efficient clean quiet EV's are great, large expensive poor handling 'performance' EV's make no sense to me at all. That's where Tesla went wrong, again very much IMHO.....
wab172uk said:
Biggles111 said:
The real PH worthy news here is the overnight drop in the UK price of the S and X. There is a lot of discussion going on between owners as to whether this is real or if someone at Tesla forgot to include VAT, but on the face of it an S 100D ludicrous performance can be had as a custom order for £84,150 (plus cost of autopilot etc) as a custom order, when yesterday it was a £120k+ car.
People have been querying the pricing this morning and have been told it is real; as a result a number of orders have been placed.
If I didn't already own a 100D I'd be placing a deposit! Impact on residuals is not ideal, but if it gets more people into the cars (and if it is honoured by Tesla) it is a good thing long term.
Car of the people !!!People have been querying the pricing this morning and have been told it is real; as a result a number of orders have been placed.
If I didn't already own a 100D I'd be placing a deposit! Impact on residuals is not ideal, but if it gets more people into the cars (and if it is honoured by Tesla) it is a good thing long term.
wab172uk said:
Soon this may well be the next diesel-gate. Once we are forced to buy EV, they'll then need to build more power stations to cope with all the demand. Then give it a few years, and Global warming will be down to EV cars and the power stations used to charge them.
Will they thou? 30% of the UKs energy is already green and it would be easy to double this over the next 10 years to match demand from electric carsAnd that's ignoring the year on year reduction in demand as technology improves
Tesla are already brilliant at having 'pop-up' showrooms in shopping centres across the UK. Anyone serious about purchasing one can simply find their nearest pop-up and have a product demonstration there. Then go home and order one easily and smoothly online without the pressure of any salesmen or the need to shop around extensively looking for the best price.
In fact this is a trend we'll see a lot more of, brands using marketing funded pop-ups as a show rooms for product demonstrations rather than traditional retail outlets for selling products there and then.
In fact this is a trend we'll see a lot more of, brands using marketing funded pop-ups as a show rooms for product demonstrations rather than traditional retail outlets for selling products there and then.
The future of Tesla in particular is not the future of electric cars in general. Electric cars are coming regardless of what happens to this company and whether anyone on here wants them or not.
With that in mind, this doesn't sound healthy to me. At all. I'll put it this way: suppose instead of Tesla it was, say JLR, who'd conisistently struggled to make a profit after several years of seemingly impressive demand. Suppose that JLR then announced that they were closing all their dealerships and cutting the prices of two thirds of their range. Would you lot be saying "goodness how innovative" or would you be taking bets on how many months they had left?
With that in mind, this doesn't sound healthy to me. At all. I'll put it this way: suppose instead of Tesla it was, say JLR, who'd conisistently struggled to make a profit after several years of seemingly impressive demand. Suppose that JLR then announced that they were closing all their dealerships and cutting the prices of two thirds of their range. Would you lot be saying "goodness how innovative" or would you be taking bets on how many months they had left?
Repeated massive price cuts all within a matter of weeks and a sudden pivot on sales strategy to close most locations despite recent ongoing investment and announcements in favour of more stores a couple of weeks ago would usually be a bad sign in any business, pointing only in one direction.
In more specific issues this wipes out whatever sales strategy they had left for solar, there are huge price reductions that were (very recently) claimed impossible in the timeframe and with no obvious cost reduction behind them (and why not take the margin and actually make a profit?), they have immediate availability of stock despite no real recent production ramp and (in theory) lots of waiting reservations...
Nice product, good that the price is coming down but from outside all this thrashing about isn't sending the signals of a healthy business, more one trying to keep the lights on.
Also $35K is a nice price but how steep are the options like the paint?!
In more specific issues this wipes out whatever sales strategy they had left for solar, there are huge price reductions that were (very recently) claimed impossible in the timeframe and with no obvious cost reduction behind them (and why not take the margin and actually make a profit?), they have immediate availability of stock despite no real recent production ramp and (in theory) lots of waiting reservations...
Nice product, good that the price is coming down but from outside all this thrashing about isn't sending the signals of a healthy business, more one trying to keep the lights on.
Also $35K is a nice price but how steep are the options like the paint?!
130R said:
Tesla's logic for not needing a test drive is that you can return a car within seven days, or after driving 1,000 miles, and get a full refund.
Minus delivery costs I believe which makes it a very expensive test drive even if the return process was painless. Strategy wise it doesn't really add up unless the product is addictive as crack and they expect negligible returns.
Glasgowrob said:
still dont understand why anyone dropping 80-100k on a car would not be visiting a dealer at least to look at a car first,
If you watch all the owner reviews you quickly see they are not car people, they are tech enthusiasts so seeing it in the flesh doesn't matter as all they need to know is in the spec list. You don't need to see the new Galaxy S10 before you order one. Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff