>As Mr. Musk lays it out, the change is not so radical. In an email to employees, he said that 78 percent of Model 3 orders were already placed online, and that 82 percent of the model’s buyers made their purchase without a test drive.
They're losing at most ~22% of possible sales. And some of those people might still buy online.
A lot of this piece is economic crystal ball gazing and comparing the magic of a super safe, fast, fun, and wildly popular (self driving?!) car to existing car manufacturers.
Maybe someone at NYT wants to drive their stock price down so they can buy.
82% of buyers, sure, but those were the most motivated buyers. People who have been on waitlists for years, or even (like myself) waiting since the Roadster was announced in 2007. It's a real stretch to assume that the next wave of possible owners are going to put up with buying a car that can't be test driven.
Almost all of Tesla's Model 3 orders came from their pre-order queue, which had to be done online (even in store, they simply directed you to an kiosk of their website.) before they even had Model 3s to test-drive. This means that the 78%/82% comes overwhelmingly from the preorder Model 3 buyers, and that as time passed more of the buyers were doing so through the stores.
Consequently, they're not losing "at most 22%" of possible sales, they're losing at least 22% of possible sales, likely more, since they're trying to target mainstream buyers that heavily prefer to test-drive vehicles before purchasing.
>As Mr. Musk lays it out, the change is not so radical. In an email to employees, he said that 78 percent of Model 3 orders were already placed online, and that 82 percent of the model’s buyers made their purchase without a test drive.
They're losing at most ~22% of possible sales. And some of those people might still buy online.
A lot of this piece is economic crystal ball gazing and comparing the magic of a super safe, fast, fun, and wildly popular (self driving?!) car to existing car manufacturers.
Maybe someone at NYT wants to drive their stock price down so they can buy.