I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you are pretty much unable to imagine anything different from what you’re used to. It explains why you are constantly arguing that the old way is the only way.
Please stop inventing constraints that don’t exist. There is no reason to tie the test drive solution to the sales or delivery solution, as they are completely different problems. There is no reason whatsoever that the distributed storage solution be convenient for customers or suitable for purchasing a car. You should try first principles thinking, which is Tesla’s bedrock talent.
For test drives, what is needed is for the potential customer to become familiar with the car, to the extent necessary for decision making. There are many ways to accomplish that depending on what the customer wants. Here are a few which will satisfy the needs of some potential customers, although I’m sure you can come up with a few particular ones it won’t work for.
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Set up a TaaS (e.g. Lyft, Uber) ride in a Tesla. Lots of those in all the big markets, and in some small ones. No visiting a dealership. Car comes to you, along with a driver who uses the car all the time and can tell you everything about it. Tesla pays the driver. Customer can drive the car if the TaaS driver is happy with them.
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Set up virtual Tesla ride games in shopping centers all over the country. Tesla has already had to make the driving simulation really, really good for testing Autopilot, so there’s not a lot of additional software development. No reason the gaming devices couldn’t put you in actual Tesla seats with the actual controls. More likely to be a revenue center than an expense actually. So a “test drive” consists of sending you a token for a free game.
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Similarly, set up display cars in shopping centers, or traveling road show kiosks. For those who have to sit in the car, feel the controls, examine the storage space, and literally kick the tires. Can even put test drive cars in those places too. Tesla Semis can pull big loads, and Tesla has done such traveling demo kiosks in the past.
There are lots of other possibilities, but let’s get to sales and deliveries, which are entirely separate problems. The sales problem is already solved and needs nothing more than expansion and incremental improvement – once you know what you want you take care of it online. Tesla already has delivery centers, which do nothing but deliver cars to customers who ordered them. This covers everybody who can conveniently get to them. And since there’s no problem with plenty of inventory, there’s little waiting.
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Since we’re positing plenty of inventory vehicles, obviously that means way more delivery centers. So, problem solved for many (most?) people.
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Tesla already does home delivery. Just expand it.
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Seems like this is pretty much a solved problem already. You just don’t like that you have to wait for your car, a problem which you (mostly) defined away by positing that Tesla has lots of cars waiting to be sold, so it’s just a matter of spreading them around. So work with Amazon for local warehouse space?
I’m not sure that all possible payment and trade-in issues have solutions. Maybe you can speculate about that. And I’m sure that if somebody who has never been in the business, like me, can come up with a variety of possibilities like these, then somebody who knows what they’re doing can come up with lots more.
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