Having bought several Tesla vehicles from Tesla, all requiring back and forths with local service due to manufacturing issues, their process leaves much to be desired (both purchase and servicing). “Largely done by an app” is not an accurate representation of the problem space.
I've had two service items with my Tesla, and each left me very unsatisfied because I had very basic and quick questions that the app would not answer (e.g. how long is this expected to take?) but there was no way that I could talk to a human at Tesla. They have optimized their system to prevent any human to human contact unless it's in store.
However, as bad as that experience was, it was faaaaaaaar better than any dealership interaction I've every had. I would never go back, even though I disliked the Tesla experience.
Even if Tesla wasn't an electric car, I'd be tempted to use them just to avoid the dealership experience.
So that's a justification for the "dealer tax"? That the process is not "largely done by an app"?
Seems to me that if the process cannot be streamlined by an app, that the process is wrong. Growing pains for this industry, I get it. But it shouldn't really be any harder than what an 'app' can provide. Give me a few model options, click 'Buy'.
I’m not saying the dealer tax is warranted (absolutely not), I’m saying it’s still a lot of human effort even if you streamline the process with an app (financing, tax, title, licensing, vehicle defect issues, etc). Tesla totally botched my first Model S purchase and I was stuck for two days out of state while they fixed my purchase contract and my financing. This was after having bought through their website.
Just as high touch enterprise sales is here to stay, so is a human in the loop for auto purchases. You are not the average consumer if you’re here. Your average consumer will not tolerate rough edges of an app when spending $37k.
> Your average consumer will not tolerate rough edges of an app when spending $37k.
But that's the process problem. If you go to the website and click "buy" and the car shows up in perfect condition exactly to your specifications then there is nothing to need a human to interact with. And if they can get it to the point where that's what happens 99.99% of the time, having to send out a human representative the other 0.01% of the time is cost effective.
