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
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Elon Musk requires ‘FSD’ demo for every prospective Tesla buyer in North America
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.
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.
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.
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).