"The Product Specialists (...) goal and the sole metric of their success is to have you enjoy the experience of visiting so much that you look forward to returning again."
This is not the experience I had. Walked into a Tesla store, said I want to test drive a Roadster. Salesman went into that profiling mode that all car salesmen do constantly and no customer likes, asking me all kinds of questions to find out how much I earn. Since my answers didn't please him, he told me I could test drive it for $300 for half a day - essentially renting it.
Makes sense. They probably get a lot of people who pretend to be buyers just to be able to test-drive a Tesla. Since such people don't end up buying one (as they cannot afford it), letting them test-drive serves no purpose other than wasting the dealer's time, and setting a $300 fee helps weed them out. Note that most high-end car dealers do this.
Another way to think about it is this: if you were a serious buyer, i.e. the type who can spend a tens of grand on a car, then a $300 fee would be pocket change for you. In all likelihood, it would count towards the purchase of the car if you decided to buy one. But declining to pay the fee basically confirms their suspicion that you were not a serious buyer and were there simply to satisfy your curiosity.
I think this view is misguided. Apple would be foolish to make you prove that you could buy an iPad before letting you play with one, and the same holds true for Tesla. They need to overcome widespread skepticism about purely electric cars, and a large part of that is exposing everyone they can to their cars.
Sure, give preferencial treatment to people who have the money to buy one, but let everyone try them out.
An iPad costs a couple hundred bucks, and is tiny. A Tesla Roadster costs tens of thousands, requires a full-time employee to babysit it during a test-drive, has to be insured, and fills a room.
You're not comparing apples to oranges. You're comparing a paper airplane to a 747.
Not to mention that most Apple devices can't harm anyone else - i.e. there is no third-party liability that Apple may have to assume (or buy insurance to cover) if you (a free 'test driver') harms someone else with their test product.
It is so much less expensive for Apple to let a prospect try out an iPad than it is for Tesla to arrange a test drive that these two things are effectively apples and oranges.
Actually if the fee is just a filter, they could refund your money if you buy any car in the next say 6 months. That way it's less of an obstacle for potential buyers but still filters out non-buyers.
If I'm trying to decide whether to buy a Maserati or a Tesla, and you tell me I need to pay you $300 for the Tesla just to test drive it, I can tell you that I'm buying the Maserati, since they've already figured out that I'm a potential buyer.
Tesla is smart to size up the people that walk into their stores so that they don't offend the ones that actually can buy their cars. If they offend non-customers, so be it.
If you give similar answers to the Maserati sales rep, they will also charge you a fee for test-driving, or maybe not even let you test-drive.
Like I said, any high-end car sales rep is trained to quickly profile potential buyers. They judge everything from your looks to your body language and profession. When you're talking about really expensive cars, it's better to err on the side of caution and lose a few potential sales than let just any loser off the street test-drive one.
I had a friend back in college whose dad was the owner of a local Mercedes dealer. After interning there for a summer, he cryptically told me that he "cracked the code." From there on, his favorite hobby became dressing up in nice suits, walking into a high-end car dealership, and convincing (with 95% success) the sales rep to let him drive one of their cars. I accompanied him for one of his trips and got to test-drive for free a Lexus convertible, a Ferrari, and a Nissan 350Z back when it was new.
If you're really deciding between a Maserati and a Tesla, I'd be willing to bet that Tesla isn't actually going to charge you $300 to drive one.
If you walked off the street into a Maserati dealership dressed like a hacker, refused to provide any information qualifying yourself as a prospect, and demanded a test drive, you might not be allowed to drive one at all.
Of course, if you wanted a Maserati, you could probably have one next week. Tesla is back-ordered to forever. So whatever they're doing seems to be working OK.
I've paid $3K to rent an Audi R8 for the weekend. I currently have a Model S reservation. I'm cool with paying $300 to see if I want to spend $80K on a car (0.00375% of the value of the vehicle).
The Roadsters sold for that much, but are no longer on sale. The Model S price is a little over half that. You can get above $100K with the right combination of options, but most sales probably won't be for anywhere near that.
I had a starkly different experience when I visited a Tesla store (in Newport Beach). The product specialist was super helpful and we sat in a Model S for 10 minutes while he explained all the features. They didn't have a car to test drive but he apologized and said they were making them as fast as they could.
The store was clean. Lots of people were in and out. And the whole experience did a good job to highlight the innovation behind the Model S (they had an entire powertrain on display).
The Newport Beach store didn't have the Roadster, but if they let me test drive a Roadster for $300 for a half day... I'd jump on it. It'd be a very fun half day and well worth the few hundred dollars.
And if the answer is no, would you want someone you pay good money to spending time with someone that doesn't have the means to actually buy the product instead of a person who does?
It's the honest approach, really. Having numerous dealers compete for my business just offends my sense of fairness - sure, I could get a test drive from one, then accept a lowball from another dealer - but is that really sustainable? At what point was that "lowball deal" really just the actual price you should have paid whereas the competing higher priced dealer was inflating their price so they could spend an hour or two showing you the car?
To this extent, I even rent the car I'm going to buy (go to service dept at dealership, ask for the specific model). This way I can tell about all those ity-bitties like oh, whether the car will fit comfortably in the garage, how it feels on the way up the mountains, etc.
Just to be clear: I'm supportive of Tesla's current practice of "vetting" people and charging for test drives (or just denying them completely ) if warranted. I see no reason for them to waste their time.
What I don't think they should do is charge for test drives as a matter of practice, because that doesn't help them court their target clientele that are getting free rides (as vetted customers) at the competition.
...especially in today's social network world, you'd be surprised how many technophiles, while perhaps unable to afford a Tesla, can influence those that can.
You've missed the point completely. It's not to make money, it's to deal with the OP's problem of get looked over by sales reps. People don't like being treadted like that, that's why they hate traditional car dealers.
$300 to rent a decent sports car for half a day seems like a pretty fair deal. But I agree it would be better if they where up front about it (and then perhaps waiving it for 'good' potential customers)
This is not the experience I had. Walked into a Tesla store, said I want to test drive a Roadster. Salesman went into that profiling mode that all car salesmen do constantly and no customer likes, asking me all kinds of questions to find out how much I earn. Since my answers didn't please him, he told me I could test drive it for $300 for half a day - essentially renting it.
I won't be going back.