[mattbeckman]

I wouldn't say it was a death sentence. Maybe it depends on strong word-of-mouth reputation, but I'd prefer to buy one online without ever stepping onto a sales floor.

From their original announcement: "You can now return a car within 7 days or 1,000 miles for a full refund. Quite literally, you could buy a Tesla, drive several hundred miles for a weekend road trip with friends and then return it for free."

This is how buying a car should be, if it was up to me.

[tivert]

> "You can now return a car within 7 days or 1,000 miles for a full refund. Quite literally, you could buy a Tesla, drive several hundred miles for a weekend road trip with friends and then return it for free."

> This is how buying a car should be

No it isn't. How realistic and practical would it be to choose between multiple makes, models, and option packages if you had to buy all of them and return the ones you didn't want within 7 days (or be stuck with them)? The only situation where Tesla's model makes any sense is for a customer who's already 99% committed to buying a Tesla, but most buyers aren't like that.

One awesome thing about the traditional dealer model is that you can try cars out at a leisurely pace with absolutely no obligation to buy. Tesla's model is twisted so that you have a Sword of Damocles handing over your head.

[outworlder]

> you can try things out at a leisurely pace

Yeah, but that's the only 'pace' available. Last time I leased a car, it took an entire afternoon.

[tivert]

> Yeah, but that's the only 'pace' available. Last time I leased a car, it took an entire afternoon.

You mean filling out all the paperwork when you've decided to make a deal? That's not what I was talking about. I was talking about the experience of walking into a dealership on a Saturday, test driving a car or two, and leaving without even having to sign any contracts or give anyone any payment information.

Yeah, the dealer warranty/coating up-sell song and dance is obnoxious, but it sounds like heaven compared with needing to buy cars just to test drive them.

[NickM]

"You can now return a car within 7 days or 1,000 miles for a full refund. Quite literally, you could buy a Tesla, drive several hundred miles for a weekend road trip with friends and then return it for free."

Yeah I mean, in theory that's great and all but in practice most people are going to have to go through a lot of paperwork and hassle to set up a loan or otherwise get the cash together up front. Even if you can get a full refund, test driving is still a much lower commitment.

That said, maybe supply is so much more of a bottleneck than demand for them that it's not worth the money to keep all the stores open. Or maybe enough consumers have cars now that owners are just giving test drives to their friends and family instead. I don't really know what the right decision for them is here, but the "oh well nobody needs test drives because of our refund policy" argument did feel a little silly to me.

[CPLX]

I'm not interested in giving a company I have no track record with tens of thousands of dollars first, just for the privilege of being allowed to evaluate the product they want to sell me.

Not now for sure, but especially not when functional and competent companies like BMW, Mercedes, or Audi, who have made incredible cars for decades, will have competitive electric options and will treat me like an adult making a major purchase and let me test drive them.

[BoorishBears]

Tesla has a terrible track record with returning money. Stories of getting the run around and in one case bounced checks...

And for those financing returning a loan is not loan easy as returning the car.

[dd36]

I had no issue getting my deposit refunded. Was quick and easy.

[BoorishBears]

That's good for you. Not everyone did:

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/refund-stories.14350...

[e1ven]

I might be willing (and even prefer!) to actually buy it online, but before I'd be willing to consider that I'd want to sit in one and do a test-drive at the very least..

I'm not going to buy 4 cars and return 3 of them to be able to comparison shop.

[mikestew]

Maybe it depends on strong word-of-mouth reputation

That might work for a phone or a laptop, but when it comes to a $90K purchase, I wouldn't take my own mother's word on it without sitting my ass in one first.

(And, no, I'm not going to buy it and return it later. We're buying cars, not clothes, here.)

[rchaud]

> From their original announcement: "You can now return a car within 7 days or 1,000 miles for a full refund. Quite literally, you could buy a Tesla, drive several hundred miles for a weekend road trip with friends and then return it for free."

Come on, do you honestly believe returning a Tesla will be the same experience as returning a random trinket on Amazon?

With all the financial pressure on Tesla, they will be doing anything to recognize the revenue of a "sold" car, which they can only do after the return window lapses. If the NYT forces me to call someone if I want to end a $20/mo. subscription, I shudder to think what Tesla will do to protect their $50k+ sale.