Elon Asked For More Love In The World, Tesla Owners Obliged

6 years ago Chanan Bos 0 Comments
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

In the second quarter of 2018 Tesla’s goal was to produce and produce between 50,000 and 55,000 Model 3 sedans, and deliver even more. There have been parking lots all over the US filling up with Model 3s that have not yet been delivered. In light of that, Elon Musk recently tweeted that the company has moved from Production Hell to Delivery Hell.

Tesla is a company that went from selling 2,000 cars per year to 200,000 in just 6 years. Growing the size of a multinational conglomerate takes time. Perhaps what Tesla is discovering here is that building something big in one place like the Gigafactory is in some ways easier than building many delivery centers worldwide.

Currently, Tesla’s process for handing over the car includes a big contract that requires lots of signatures, a process that reportedly could take over an hour. In addition to that, the delivery center employees also have to explain to their customers how the car works. Some customers are not very high-tech. Thus, delivering a car could take anywhere between 1 to 2 hours per customer. That is obviously not very quick.

Elon Musk has stated that Tesla is trying to streamline the delivery experience by switching to a digital contract that takes only minutes to complete.

Photo by CleanTechnica reader Iain Thomson

Tesla always has a big increase in deliveries at the end of the quarter. Since this new system isn’t ready yet, Tesla was on schedule to have a very busy weekend this past weekend. Then, existing Tesla owners decided to show some initiative.

It was an idea originally suggested by IGN journalist Ryan McCaffrey on Twitter. Ryan is known to often get responses from Elon Musk, and he has a new Tesla Model 3 Performance. On September 21, Ryan suggested that he and other Tesla owners would be willing to help with the delivery issue by helping acquaint the new customers with their cars.

According to people detailing their volunteering experience on the Tesla Motors subreddit, there were 3 big issues Tesla staff were running into with the deliveries. The first issue had something to do with getting contract papers confirmed at Tesla headquarters. While they waited on papers, the second issue was finding the correct car on an overcrowded parking lot. The third issue was when a car was in the middle of the lot and other cars first had to be moved in order to take out the correct one.

Critics were claiming that there would be legal issues in using volunteers without a contract of some sort. That turned out not to be an issue since the volunteers didn’t do the official orientation, only talked to people before and after the staff were interacting with the customers. This included helping people install the Tesla app while they were waiting and filling in the gaps by answering questions after the orientation.

In any case, the volunteering effort was a huge success even if they didn’t involve doing orientations but only helped keep the people in line happy and informed. There are even unconfirmed reports of volunteers getting a die-cast Model 3 meant for day 1 reservation holders as a thank you for all of their help. Elon Musk recently stated on the Joe Rogan show that “it wouldn’t hurt to have more love in the world.” Its seem that in the case of  Tesla owners, that message did not fall on deaf ears.

Hat tip to Vincent for all of the tweets at the end of the article.

Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest CleanTechnica.TV Video

Advertisement
 
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.

Chanan Bos

Chanan grew up in a multicultural, multi-lingual environment that often gives him a unique perspective on a variety of topics. He is always in thought about big picture topics like AI, quantum physics, philosophy, Universal Basic Income, climate change, sci-fi concepts like the singularity, misinformation, and the list goes on. Currently, he is studying creative media & technology but already has diplomas in environmental sciences as well as business & management. His goal is to discourage linear thinking, bias, and confirmation bias whilst encouraging out-of-the-box thinking and helping people understand exponential progress. Chanan is very worried about his future and the future of humanity. That is why he has a tremendous admiration for Elon Musk and his companies, foremost because of their missions, philosophy, and intent to help humanity and its future.

Chanan Bos has 118 posts and counting. See all posts by Chanan Bos