Photo: Screenshot from Tesla website
People who buy Tesla cars are very different, but they all have something in common: they’re willing to part with $100,000 for an EV coming from a young company that still has plenty to prove in the automotive sector.
Despite all the big money circling Elon Musk’s enterprises and the recent rapid expansion of Tesla Motors, it still remains a small company compared to the industry’s old dogs. That being said, it did shake the status quo a little by showing everybody how a true electric vehicle is actually built, at least as far as the driver train is concerned.
But as it so often happens with companies that stretch too far too quickly, not everybody that comes into contact with Tesla is going to have a nice experience. Up until now, Tesla was the new kid on the block, riding the wave of sympathy that the David type of companies usually get when facing the old Goliaths we’re starting to get a bit tired of.
With two models and a third, more mainstream one in the books, Tesla is now starting to look pretty Goliathish itself, so people are less inclined to forgive the things that go wrong in their interactions with the company. And since they’re the ones who are either going to wire $100,000 into its accounts or have already done it, it’s easy to understand why.
Marty is one such guy. He says right from the start that he’s really supportive of what Tesla is trying do do, but after you read everything he’s gone through, you’ll feel so enraged you’ll want to call Tesla and have a word with them yourself.
You can go to his original post and read the full story (very long), or you can stick around here for a short resumé.
Like most of us, he finds the price tag for a new Tesla Model S a bit prohibitive and too much of a gamble. A slightly used vehicle with only a few thousand miles on the clock and a nice discount, however, sounded a lot more appealing to him, so he contacted Kevin, an Owner Advisor with Tesla.
After a few weeks of browsing through the company’s available used cars, the two finally agreed on one particular model. Marty paid the deposit and was getting ready to welcome his new car, making room in the garage and preparing the special charging station. All this was happening with two weeks remaining of 2015, and he was told that his car should be delivered first thing the next year, on January 8, and that he shouldn’t worry because it was marked as sold and nobody would use it anymore.
The weeks went by and Marty wasn’t getting any call from Tesla. When he did try to get in touch with the closest office to where he lived, nobody answered. He insisted quite a few times, but to no avail. Long story short, he finally got in touch with Kevin, who informed him that his car was taken by Elon Musk himself, and he was using it to test a new version of autopilot.
In the end, Marty got his money back and was left with a very sour taste in his mouth following this terrible experience. A number of questions pop up instantly, but the real mystery is this: are Tesla employees afraid of Elon Musk? Is he some sort of dictator, owner of a plantation, or was this just a long string of unfortunate events?
Was he aware he was taking an already sold car or did one of his employees forget to tell him? Well, unless somebody gathers the courage to tell Musk about this, we will probably never find out. If I were Elon Musk, though, and I found out about this, I would personally apologize to Marty. In the form of a complimentary Tesla Model S, of course.
But as it so often happens with companies that stretch too far too quickly, not everybody that comes into contact with Tesla is going to have a nice experience. Up until now, Tesla was the new kid on the block, riding the wave of sympathy that the David type of companies usually get when facing the old Goliaths we’re starting to get a bit tired of.
With two models and a third, more mainstream one in the books, Tesla is now starting to look pretty Goliathish itself, so people are less inclined to forgive the things that go wrong in their interactions with the company. And since they’re the ones who are either going to wire $100,000 into its accounts or have already done it, it’s easy to understand why.
Marty is one such guy. He says right from the start that he’s really supportive of what Tesla is trying do do, but after you read everything he’s gone through, you’ll feel so enraged you’ll want to call Tesla and have a word with them yourself.
You can go to his original post and read the full story (very long), or you can stick around here for a short resumé.
Like most of us, he finds the price tag for a new Tesla Model S a bit prohibitive and too much of a gamble. A slightly used vehicle with only a few thousand miles on the clock and a nice discount, however, sounded a lot more appealing to him, so he contacted Kevin, an Owner Advisor with Tesla.
After a few weeks of browsing through the company’s available used cars, the two finally agreed on one particular model. Marty paid the deposit and was getting ready to welcome his new car, making room in the garage and preparing the special charging station. All this was happening with two weeks remaining of 2015, and he was told that his car should be delivered first thing the next year, on January 8, and that he shouldn’t worry because it was marked as sold and nobody would use it anymore.
The weeks went by and Marty wasn’t getting any call from Tesla. When he did try to get in touch with the closest office to where he lived, nobody answered. He insisted quite a few times, but to no avail. Long story short, he finally got in touch with Kevin, who informed him that his car was taken by Elon Musk himself, and he was using it to test a new version of autopilot.
But wait, there’s more
The really surreal part is this: Kevin told Marty that he could see a log of all of his attempted calls to the customer service department, but that the operators there didn’t want to pick up the phone because they knew the situation and didn’t know what to tell him. Can you imagine that? A customer service intentionally ignoring a customer’s calls?In the end, Marty got his money back and was left with a very sour taste in his mouth following this terrible experience. A number of questions pop up instantly, but the real mystery is this: are Tesla employees afraid of Elon Musk? Is he some sort of dictator, owner of a plantation, or was this just a long string of unfortunate events?
Was he aware he was taking an already sold car or did one of his employees forget to tell him? Well, unless somebody gathers the courage to tell Musk about this, we will probably never find out. If I were Elon Musk, though, and I found out about this, I would personally apologize to Marty. In the form of a complimentary Tesla Model S, of course.
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