Elon Musk requires 'FSD' demo for every prospective Tesla buyer in North America
Elon Musk requires 'FSD' demo for every prospective Tesla buyer in North America
Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent an email to employees on Monday informing them they have to show customers how to use "FSD" before making delivery in North America.
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“Going forward, it is mandatory in North America to install and activate FSD V12.3.1 and take customers on a short test ride before handing over the car,” Musk wrote in an email to staffers on Monday. “Almost no one actually realizes how well (supervised) FSD actually works. I know this will slow down the delivery process, but it is nonetheless a hard requirement.”
I mean, you can require the employee delivering the car to offer to take the customer on a ride. You can require the employee to tell the customer how awesome the service is. But I don't see how you can make the customer go for a ride if the customer doesn't want to go for a ride. And, frankly, I kind of suspect that a not-inconsiderable number of new customers just want to go use their new car and aren't interested in sitting through a sales pitch for some associated service.
Easy. You write it into the sales agreement. Sales agreements are contracts where both parties agree to do certain things in exchange for other things.
While most agreements are pretty simple, you give up money in exchange for goods, or services, it's also easy to write "You will pay the purchase price ($....) to Tesla and also sit through our fucking FSD demo, in exchange, Tesla will deliver 1 ugly-ass car shaped like a fat roller skate," or similar.
But the two people most important to the contract are the salesguy and the customer.
The sales guy can say "Hey, sign here stating I gave you a FSD demo", and the customer says "Wait, why??", and the sales guy says : "If you don't sign that, I'm forced to take you out on a 5 minute demo", then the customer signs it.
So they'd just easily avoid the whole endeavor anyway.
But I don't see how you can make the customer go for a ride if the customer doesn't want to go for a ride.
Don't hand over the keys on the basis that company requirements for liability mitigation were not met.
I know that sounds like a stretch, but Tesla buyers don't own their cars. Tesla has control over the system (OTA updates), you "have to" bring it to Tesla for repairs and service, and they've even tried to control who can resell a cyberteuck.
You're basically renting a Tesla at full price.
you "have to" bring it to Tesla for repairs and service
That's some big ass quotation marks, because it's not true at all. I've only had mine fixed by Tesla when it was a warranty issue. The service I've had done (brakes, general checkup and AC) have been done by a local shop without any issues. Had a fender bender that was fixed by a local shop too without any issues.
I split my service visits between Tesla and a local shop depending on what I need done. When my son destroyed the suspension on a curb, that went to the local shop. When my skid plate ripped, Tesla did that because mobile service is so convenient. I've actually found Tesla's labor costs to be very reasonable.
Their hourly rate is certainly lower than my local shop.
I've had things like my audio controller replaced and it was like $30 for labor. Same for a lot of other things.
Tesla has control over the system (OTA updates), you "have to" bring it to Tesla for repairs and service, and they've even tried to control who can resell a cyberteuck.
That's not the case at all. I haven't needed to do much on my Tesla but the few things that I have needed to do on my 2018 Model 3 have been handled either under warranty by Tesla immediately and without charge, or handled by the same body repair and tire shops I took my Honda to before.
As for the Cybertruck resale limits, other manufacturers do the exact same thing for new models at initial launch or even as part of their regular sales agreements. That includes traditionally more expensive brands like Ferrari and Lamborghini, as well as brands like Ford when introducing new high end models like the GT. This isn't something weird in the industry at all for new limited production models.
Plenty of really expensive cars like Bugattis, plenty of airplanes and other potentially dangerous machines require a purchaser to be taught how to use them before they can take delivery. Many even require certification. Refusing to learn how to safely operate something is perfectly reasonable grounds for a vendor, dealer or manufacturer to refuse delivery.
How about refusing to learn something you haven't purchased? Like FSD...
This isn't about "proper operation" of a car though. Every car buyer has a drivers license after all.
This is about Elon Musk trying to sell a $12,000+ upcharge onto customers (or a monthly payment of $200/month).
Well no, because self driving/autopilot is not something people have learned to use yet. You light think "the car drives itself, what's there to learn?" and recent mishaps with autopilot will answer your question. This is probably a requirement to protect Tesla from liability when a driver misuses autopilot.
FSD is the $12,000 upgrade package.
This isn't the "free" Autopilot package included in every Tesla. This is literally an upselling maneuver for Tesla. If this were a "learning" kind of thing coming from Tesla / Elon, it'd only apply to people who were interested in the $12,000 FSD package, not the entire damn customer base.
This is dealership-level bullshit. Actually, its far worse than any dealership bullshit I've ever seen. Its not like Hummer sales-reps are going to force me to sit through a "Crab Walk" demo or Toyota sales reps are going to have me sit through Toyota-features when I'm shopping with them. There's a bit of upselling going on in any car buying process, but $12,000+ upselling maneuvers (like FSD advertisement) is well into the bullshit territory.