YSK Going to a Tesla dealership and spending a day with a salesperson when you have no intent on buying is a great way to protest without waiting for a scheduled event.
Hours spent trying to get someone to buy a car they have no intention of buying are hours NOT spent making sales commissions.
I could eat some pepperoni pizza and garlic bread. That will piss off my stomach something fierce. I can walk around the showroom crop dusting. It will clear out that dealership, I promise.
I think the Geneva Convention says something about chemical warfare. Sounds like you're flirting with danger there. See if you can get a note on medical letterhead confirming your diagnosis with Crohn's Disease so you can bring it out and threaten medical discrimination.
Tesla doesn't have traditional sales staff. They're more like showroom managers. All you'd be doing is giving them foot traffic that makes them more attractive to passerbys.
Except it isn't because Tesla dealers don't work like traditional dealers.
They'll leave you to drive one unattended and then tell you to reserve online if you want to buy.
They don't earn commission. They have no incentive to let you waste their time.
You underestimate the power of social norms. If you start talking and ignore their social cues, they're not very likely to kick you out or cut you off.
If only we had a small army of awkward people who really wanted to talk about their specific hobby. But where could we find those?
Bingo. Just go test drive a vehicle. I test drove a Cybertruck, it was awful, but it costs Tesla the most for a test drive. Maybe slap an inflammatory bumper sticker on it to help others hate Elon as much as you already do.
I think this may have the opposite intended effect. Tesla would report that interest in their product is still strong or even going up. That might make stock prices go up.
But if they internally report interest is up, but sales do not reflect it, then investors think they are cooking books somewhere and the valuation goes down due to lack of trust.
Bold of you to assume they aren't already cooking the books. Though, I imagine they use some plausible deniability and have some bullshit AI cook the books for them.
Pretend you have no concept of electric cars.
"Diesel or gas? Where do you fill it up? Yeah I know how electric cars work, don't treat me like an idiot. I'm asking where does the fuel go?"
Channel your inner grandpa when being shown the touchscreen. Firmly stab and hold your finger on the screen when pushing buttons. I'm told they don't have parking brakes, so insist to be shown where the park brake is.
Ask how many miles to the gallon. Haggle endlessly. Make them show you the engine.
Better yet. Return it with the trunk filled with gasoline.
"Don't worry, I went ahead and topped off the tank for you."
Or
"Damn it! I pressed too hard and the touch screen broke!"
Or if driving a cybertruck:
"I wanted to be a good neighbor, so I went ahead and ran it through the car wash. 'Car wash mode?' What the hell is that?"
Not sure about this.
Unless you're diverting resources from a sale, only when every single salesperson on the floor would otherwise be engaged with a customer, you're not really wasting anyone's time but your own. In fact, you may be honing their skills.
An empty sales flooris a statement of its self.
A smoldering sales floor is a stronger statement.
Hard to retain salespeople if their income tanks because they have customers who are never quite ready to make the decision.
Tesla showrooms don't work that way. You don't buy the car from them.
But as they said, if you aren't taking them away from another potential sale, you are doing nothing but make the dealership look busy.
Not going tanks their income the same as wasting their time.
Bring your friends and family!
Tesla used to famously not have commissioned sales. It's one of the reasons the buying process was so much better than a dealership honestly, no pressure to buy, and they had absolutely no control of the pricing or need to inflate a sale.
At one point they received general bonuses based on overall deliveries, but not on a per-vehicle basis that they interacted with.
Before I bought my Model 3, the "sales" person literally just took me on a test drive, then showed me the standard Tesla.com website to configure what I was looking for. And based on my experience in retail sales myself at the time, they clearly were there to advise and had no ball in the court when it came to whether I bought it through them, or even if I bought one at all.
Not sure if that changed in the last 5 years or so, but I doubt it switched to that type of system since that would mean Tesla having to implement an entire process to handle commissioned sales when they clearly would prefer people just buy them online.
One of the few good things about Tesla is the dealership. Not like a traditional dealership and you would just buy it online for the same price as everybody else like you would a new device.
One of the few good things they did
I doubt the vast majority of people could actually string a car salesman along for more than a few minutes without feeling awkward and cringey.
Going to a dealership, looking at a car, talking to a sales guy, doing a test drive... you're really only there for 45 minutes until it's time to sign the offer or leave.
Also, sales guy is going to be reluctant to spend much time with you or take you for a drive if you don't really look like a tesla kind of person (wealthy).
Also, sales guy is going to be reluctant to spend much time with you or take you for a drive if you don't really look like a tesla kind of person (wealthy).
I'm with you till the end, but teslas are like 40k at the low end, and most rich tech bros look homeless anyway.
Not really. Most Teslas are sold online.
Except the ones sold to boomers who don’t know how the internet works but heard there’s these fancy new cars they can buy to own the libs
I think France has the right idea. This feels a bit soft.
Not everyone has the courage to fire bomb a dealership, and a death by a thousand cuts is still a death. If the only thing you are comfortable doing in protest is gumming up the works a bit, so be it.
Why not both
Or just yell "BORTLES!"
Is there anything in the showrooms worth taking that aren't bolted down or having a tracking device built in? lol
Pens! I guess. Probably also have free coffee/tea/hot chocolate so fill up on that. Cookies?
This would require spending an extended period of time speaking with a Tesla salesperson. I'd probably rather just die.
Doug Stanhope has a great bit from his special
He's a great crass alcoholic comedian. You know he's great in that he's both cancelable and not really on the joe Rogan radar.
Another recent fun bit so you kinda get who he is if you're unfamiliar.
Fox news picked him up as maybe some ally. Yeah. No.
And if you're smitten, well Idngive you the gold but it's off YouTube.
It's been scrubbed from the internet but if you put in your pirate cap, find 'before turning the gun on hinself', because the last 20-30 minutes is masterful.
No.