danrjones said:
gcrouse said:
IMO, Hyundai/Kia is probably Tesla's greatest threat to US market share at this point with the range, price point, charging capability, and biggest one - build quality, service locations, and meaningful warranty.
Even one of the biggest Tesla fanboy YouTube channels, Tesla Time News, recently did a whole episode on how terrible Tesla service / service centers are, and listed ways to improve. Beyond the obvious - like tripling the number of service centers, other ideas including using one whole quarter to produce nothing but spare parts, better customer service and training, etc. One example given was a woman who's model 3 came without a brake pad, literally. Then she was given the run around and had appointments cancelled to get it "fixed", then finally she got into a service center but they needed the car for a long period of time (no parts!) - so they gave her a Uber voucher to catch a ride home. Problem was, she lived hundreds of miles away. Yikes.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/43876/tesla-model-3-owner-discovers-car-was-delivered-missing-a-brake-pad
As much as people throw shade on the dealership model and traditional automakers when it comes to the EV market, I'm not entirely convinced the buy online/mobile service/OTA update/limited service center model is quite the disruption it's cracked up to be.
In Tesla's case, what people are finding out is that it's great in theory but it really requires a quality product from the get go - and what worked when Tesla was delivering less cars doesn't work so well when there's more cars leaving the factory with issues they should have never left the factory with - let alone the "someone hit your car?" Too bad - that's 6 months you'll have to wait for parts and it'll be expensive. I can't see that getting any better with Tesla planning to do the castings.
GM was proof that will the traditional automakers really want to sell EVs - they'll sell EVs. They pared down excess Cadillac dealers uninterested in selling them with buyouts, sold the Bolt at a $6k loss per unit upfront and wasn't far behind Tesla in the race to 200k. Then after they lost the credit they dropped MSRP and offered more incentives to move a vehicle they weren't going to make money on subsidized by more profitable lines. While the startups are going off the same model and Volvo/Geely is trying to go the same route with their electric models - i don't think there's a clear winner in models yet.
I think how much of a SNAFU the heat pump issue which is probably hardware/not software is really going to test the boundaries of Tesla's already strained ability to provide basic service you can get from other OEMs in a couple of weeks within several miles.