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Comment by knowaveragejoe | Hacker News Reader

> Tesla is pioneering two things at once, (a) a luxury full-EV segment for passenger vehicles, and (b) bypassing the traditional dealer network and selling directly to consumers. Since I never got my car, I can’t speak to (a). But, because (b) is so horribly broken, I don’t think (a) can succeed.

How on earth does this person's experience point to the non-dealership model being broken? Has this person never dealt with a shitty dealership?

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Yeah, that's pretty weird. People experience this problem all the time with dealerships: you call up and make a deal on a car, they "hold it" for you, you get there and it turns out the car you wanted "was just sold" but the dealer is happy to sell you this other one instead, which by the way is several thousand dollars more expensive.

At least with Tesla, you can be pretty sure that Elon Musk actually did take this guy's car. The dealers will just lie to you; in the scenario above, they typically never had the car in the first place.

I'm not defending what Tesla did here in any way, but this problem certainly doesn't make a case for dealers.

I guess the point was that dealer are notoriously bad. Tesla decide to bypass them in order to put in place a better system.

Simply providing a similar service or very marginally better, is a big failure of model. If we are having a bad meal in a restaurant, and I invite you home to eat home cook food instead, but I serve you the exact same bad meal. Would you not be slightly underwhelmed, and wondering what was the point ?

Of course, that's one guy having a problem so that's not statistically significant. But from his point of view, Tesla model is indeed failing to deliver its promises.

> you call up and make a deal on a car, they "hold it" for you, you get there and it turns out the car you wanted "was just sold"

Although this generally doesn't happen after you stumped up thousands of dollars as a deposit.

Only because the opportunity presents itself early. I've seen plenty of stories of people getting screwed like this after putting money down too.

When you have a shitty dealership, you drive somewhere else in town to buy a car.

I went to five different dealerships when I bought my car. Three of them were shitty / scumbags. The last two were good, and one offered me a better price.

The benefit of the dealership model is that customer service is decentralized, and different dealerships even offer different levels of customer service. Some offer free tuneups for life for example (and seem to factor that into the cost of the car). I went for a dealership with a lower price, since I expect to do my own oil changes / basic maintenance.

You only really know how good your dealership is after you've bought a car and there is some problem.

I don't think he was arguing that the (possible) non-dealership model was broken, but that Tesla's current attempt to disrupt it is flawed, and that if they fail because of poor execution, that this could stifle future innovation in this area.

The next sentence:

> My concern is if Tesla fails the experiment of directly selling cars to consumers may be considered a failure, when in reality it was tremendous missteps on Teslas part that caused it to not work.

Tesla is climbing uphill against an entrenched dealer network. In order to succeed, Tesla needs to be much better than dealers. Any time the message becomes "but the incumbents are just as bad," the innovator is falling behind.

97% of Tesla owners would buy another Tesla[1]. Doesn't sound like they're screwing up overall, because that's an amazingly high %.

1: http://www.consumerreports.org/cars/tesla-reliability-doesnt...

"Despite the problems, our data show that Tesla owner satisfaction is still very high: Ninety-seven percent of owners said they would definitely buy their car again. It appears that Tesla has been responsive to replacing faulty motors, differentials, brakes, and infotainment systems, all with a minimum of fuss to owners."

Want to know how well the dealership model works?

I bought a car last year. Found a dealership with exactly what I wanted, ordered it from them, and traveled a long distance to get there.

The car they had in their inventory didn't match it's description and no one at the dealer (despite cleaning it and installing a few options for me) noticed it had the wrong trim level.

So I had to find the car somewhere else for more money.

If you can't keep track of the inventory sitting on your lot you're screwed up. Not 'oops we sold it to someone else' but 'the car physically isn't what the computer says and no one noticed'.

Way to go Honda dealer. Ruined my experience of buying my first new car and put a SERIOUS dent in my respect for Honda.

Heh heh. I think that's pretty normal. I used to work for a logistics company. One of the big car companies was interested in our product, which was normally used to track inventory in warehouses. They told us every year they lost thousands of cars - no idea what happened to them.

So I listed to them as they were trying to sort out what happened and if someone nearby had the car I wanted, it sounded like what happened was that all the cars in the shipment were brought to another local dealer and then taken from there to the other dealerships. The dealership I went to picked up the wrong car instead of the one they were supposed to have (same color, same engine, etc., only trim package differed).

Has you never dealt with a not-shitty dealership?

I have. Last year I wanted to buy a 2015 STI. I emailed the dealers within 25 miles or so, replied to the one with the best price and said I wanted the car. He said 'just put a sold sign on it, when do you want to pick it up?' A few days later I walked into his office, signed the paperwork, and drove away. He didn't pester me with add-ons, didn't insist on showing me how to operate every little part of the car (he offered, I declined, he simply said 'no problem'). It was a great experience. Good dealers do exist, find them and then give them your business when possible.

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