Tesla's Elon Musk on what they plan for their stores
Tesla Motors Chairman Elon Musk has a new post up on the company blog about the thinking behind the new Tesla stores. Martin Eberhard touched on the retail plans when we talked recently, and Elon goes more in depth. He describes the goal as a cross between an Apple Store, a Starbucks and a good kitchen. It's already been reported that all the Tesla Stores will be company owned rather than franchises like most dealerships. And instead of hiding the garage in back or in a separate building, the shop will be right up front so you can watch what's going on. As a Silicon Valley company it looks like they're following the cues of other tech companies and service technicians will be both company employees and stockholders.
It will be interesting to see how the stock option approach works out in the car business. Tesla has an interesting opportunity with their cold start and they appear to want to try a different approach to car retailing. Saturn tried it in the nineties and it took them pretty far until they were ultimately felled by lack of product. Ultimately it always comes back to that and now that Saturn finally has some decent products combined with the marketing they are starting to show signs of life again. Hopefully the product launch will go smoothly enough for Tesla that we get to see if their ideas work. Read the rest of Elon's blog post at the read link.
[Source: Tesla Motors]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
susan.kraemer 1:17PM (5/01/2007)
Good marketing plan. EVs are at least as revolutionary as Macs and this is the customer for an EV too. (think of those ads with the two guys: mac and pc: same image: ICE versus NICE)
I went to a regular car dealership (gasoline cars) to try out a ZENN (would have bought it except it wasnt freeway speed) they had on the lot and was really put off by the standard issue car industry type salesman who simply did not get the point of EVs at all.
EVs should be sold in a whole different way. Its a new customer.
Reply
Chase 2:13PM (5/01/2007)
Good for him. I hope this venture makes him enough to retain his paypal fortune and continue his SpaceX Project. This is one rich guythat is putting his money towards things we all dream of.
http://www.homeownersinsurance.com
Reply
Joseph 5:26PM (5/01/2007)
The idea for the store is great. It's just that it makes it sound to exclusive from the description: ("VIP Lounge" and food and drinks for free ONLY for the Tesla Owners)
If Tesla wants to go Mainstream, which they sound like they do, they'll need to open up to all customers. No VIP. None of that stuff.
Tesla Motors cannot be reffered to the same way the Prius owners are reffered to, which is snobby and blah, blah, blah. Tesla must be for all!!!!
Reply