Employee who sent $30,000 off email was FIRED!

[SoCal Jimmy]

We don't do deals. Funniest thing I've heard all day.

That's the best marketing BS I've ever heard from them this far. Every single Tesla we've purchased has had a "discount". Nice way of trying to save face but not buying your crap.

 

[TaoJones]

I wouldn't mind a Q&A at the next shareholders meeting about the apparent disconnect between recent marketing statements and the truth.

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

Ha, I said reconsider, not jump off the ledge. Love my wife's X, but there hasn't been anything in the Newer S's aside from range to pique my interest.

FSD, surely?! Oh wait...

Good to see you resuscitate yourself on here as I've done recently, AO.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Over 50% of this 9 page thread so far has to do with whether it was okay for Ampedrealtor to share email.

I find that astonishing since it's completely within not just his right, but what you'd expect a normal human being to do.

Was there an expection of privacy? No.
Was it directly to him only? No.
Was there in any shape or form implied privacy? No.

It doesn't really matter what you'd personally do. What matters is if that was a reasonable thing for someone to do.

I fail to see how it was not.

Plus it's irrelevant as 100% of the responsibility is with who wrote/approved the email. Not in who received it.

 

[Az_Rael]

That's news to me. They may have quotas or performance measures (like required by some employers), but I have never heard that any Tesla sales person gets a commission, not even as a rumor.

Here is a product specialist listing that lists commission as part of the compensation

Product Specialist [Tesla Motors]

I have also seen reports of folks here and elsewhere who have asked and been told the sales folks do get a small commission. Here is one example.

Salespeople paid on commission? (Yup) • r/teslamotors

 

[stopcrazypp]

Here is a product specialist listing that lists commission as part of the compensation

Product Specialist [Tesla Motors]

I have also seen reports of folks here and elsewhere who have asked and been told the sales folks do get a small commission. Here is one example.

Salespeople paid on commission? (Yup) • r/teslamotors

News to me, but from that reddit it looks like they do get a relatively token amount (and mixed ways of getting it, some there say it's as a team, some say individual sales).

 

[dhanson865]

I understood that Tesla employees receive discounts on the Model 3. Is that not correct?

As far as I know it is incorrect. Elon says there are no employee discounts on the Model 3 and I haven't heard anyone say otherwise.

 

[Rahul]

I wouldn't mind a Q&A at the next shareholders meeting about the apparent disconnect between recent marketing statements and the truth.

No kidding... it's obvious these discounts are geared towards inflating their quarterly shipped car numbers so TSLA looks good to Wall Street. I hate to be repetitive but it's not that Aaron Schenck or any other OA is setting these discounts. They are already THERE by upper management. Poor guy loses his job for sending out an email that was actually true. Even if it was not supposed to be made "obvious" it was not right to fire him just to "save face" over something we all know is a farce:

We don't do deals. Funniest thing I've heard all day.

That's the best marketing BS I've ever heard from them this far. Every single Tesla we've purchased has had a "discount". Nice way of trying to save face but not buying your crap.

When you get a $40K+ discount on a car that was built only a few months ago doesn't matter what you call it, it's a good deal:

Fantastic Tesla 90D Lease deals for someone ready to jump on it now -

 

[neroden]

Aaargh. The underlying issue is again sloppiness on the part of Tesla management.

If Tesla had trained its employees properly, the email would not have referred to "discounts" and would have said "We have some inventory cars which have served as showroom models, have older features, etc. and they are available at very competitive prices right now, such as (price)". Which is what he MEANT, but he hadn't been trained that he had to say it that way.

Tesla has a bit of a wild west level of disorganization and you can't *do* this at Tesla's scale. You get messes like the sexual harassment on the factory floor and this. If the other companies weren't so far behind I'd worry that this would do the company in.

 

[neroden]

I have a question sort of related to this issue. I placed an order on an inventory car 9 days ago. The price was $145.500. It's a new car, not a car used as a service vehicle. Now, I'm from Norway so the prices from the US might differ a bit, but for a brand new P100D with similar configuration I would have to pay $154.500, so it's a 9000 dollar discount.

At the time this was the only P100D available on Tesla's inventory page in Norway. Four days later there's 12 P100Ds for sale. Almost all of them driven from 8.000 km to 15.000 km. I contact my local sales advisor to ask if I can change my order and pick another car. He then informs me that the price of the car I've ordered has been greatly reduced, and on the My Spec-page it now says $131.300. I tell him that if that's correct I'll just keep the order. He says my Final Invoice will be changed closer to the date of delivery. If not I should contact him.

Yesterday I checked the price in My Spec again, now it's $126.200. I check the other inventory cars for sale, and I realize that this seems very strange. All the cars at around the same price has been used and driven at least 10.000 km. I contact Tesla today and after about 30 minutes of back and forth on the phone I'm told that the original price of $145.500 is very likely to be the correct one. They don't know why I've been given increased showroom discounts and adjusted price reductions, but I'm told that it is highly unlikely that I'll be buying the car for anything less than $145.500.

Do I have any rights here? I know Tesla doesn't have to offer any other price than the one I got when I placed the order, but as far as I know they always honor negative price adjustments.


The thing that strikes me as very strange is that several times when I'm contacting Tesla the internal information they've got on the inventory cars differ quite a bit from the information I'm seeing on their webpage. They've got another inventory car that's only driven around 400 km that cost around $131.000. If I place an order on this one, are they obligated to stick to that price?

I wish Tesla's used and inventory car program wasn't such a bizarre mess of secrecy and mysterious fog. I can't imagine what good that does for them. It's apparently foggy and mysterious even to their own employees, which is a bad sign.

I mean, seriously, what do they *possibly* have to gain by this? I'd think that they'd gain more by putting up all the for-sale inventory (used & new) in a single readily searchable database so that people could look for their "dream car" and then buy it eBay style.

I think they'd get much faster turnover than with the current cryptic "secret inventory" insanity. I mean, I guess I understand keeping the *current* showroom cars and loaners out of the published inventory list because they don't actually *want* to sell them, but they seem to be withholding far more than that based on the tracking done by ev-cpo.

 

[neroden]

Waiting for those email passwords.

No, no. My email password secures my ability to *send* email, so that you can't impersonate me easily.

Any email sent *to* me is my property and I can publish it or not as I see fit. Normally I don't do so in a private conversation or private negotiation (though I might if I had to go to court or something), but when I get unsolicited commercial advertisements, I assume they're intended for publication.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Aaargh. The underlying issue is again sloppiness on the part of Tesla management.

If Tesla had trained its employees properly, the email would not have referred to "discounts" and would have said "We have some inventory cars which have served as showroom models, have older features, etc. and they are available at very competitive prices right now, such as (price)". Which is what he MEANT, but he hadn't been trained that he had to say it that way.

Tesla has a bit of a wild west level of disorganization and you can't *do* this at Tesla's scale. You get messes like the sexual harassment on the factory floor and this. If the other companies weren't so far behind I'd worry that this would do the company in.

I don't know, you have people in this thread still not seeing the difference (see all the people above saying "a deal's a deal"). Don't know if the employee glazed over this in the same vein or purposefully did that.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Here's the thing.

No, Tesla does not offer discounts on factory orders - and I believe them when they say they do not offer employee discounts usually, though the Founders program was clearly a discount program (which they did not mention). I also believe there is no true haggling or discount negotiation in the sense of a Middle Eastern bazar or your average American dealership.

Then there is the inventory. People say Tesla offers discounts based on age and obsoleted models, fair enough. Mathematical formulas like $1/mile $1/something keep getting thrown about, and they probably have some factual basis. Tesla probably has some mathematical formulas that they use to create pricing for used or aging cars in their inventory. Fair enough.

However, it is that inventory management where things get muddy. It is a known fact Tesla builds a lot of cars into inventory these days. With the very limited configuration options, they can offer many custom orders as factory cars as well. I sincerely believe Tesla has offered, and possibly continues to offer but does not want to publicize, discounts on inventory based on other formulas than the mathematical.

And this suggests: you can buy Tesla inventory at discount prices beyond the mathematical formula, beyond a formula that would be the same for all, and this is especially true at the end of quarters - with inventory discounts being used as a demand lever. This has included basically brand new inventory cars - and it has of course also included heavily discounted showroom models, beyond any mathematical formula.

Am I correct in concluding, this is the part where I believe most of us think Tesla's PR is (once again) misleading us?

 

[schonelucht]

Do I have any rights here?

This is a legal matter related to Norwegian law and you should ask on Norwegian forums. In some jurisdictions, their official document with the lower price would bind them to it, in others not.

 

[schonelucht]

When you have an employee who (perhaps with the best of intentions) send out an email saying ''$30K OFF!!!', that's an issue. That's completely different than if that same employee said 'Hey, some great deals on slightly used vehicles here, up to $30K off original price in some cases'. The latter is factual, the first is click bait.

The tone of the original email was certainly not "$30K OFF!" but much more towards "some great deals". I agree that the title of the post that reported on the email was a little bit more sensationalized but you can hardly fault the employee for that.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

What the employee wrote was entirely in line with what we know of quarter-end sales efforts at Tesla. When the end of the quarter is approaching, inventory is used for fast deliveries and for pushing hesitant customers over that edge. This has definitely also included discounts of an abnormal nature, compared to any mathematical fairness formulas. And it has included new inventory.

I can imagine a scenario like this: "You are hesitant on confirming your factory order? Oh ok, well Tesla does not offer discounts, but we're just having some great inventory cars from the factory coming in... if you pick one of them before the end of the quarter, you can get them for this and that price!" This we have seen happening.

Frankly, Tesla's PR is not a believable crackdown on this.

Thus it seems plausible this guy was fired (if he was fired for this), more for what he exposed, than for misrepresenting something.

 

[Xenoilphobe]

This, here, is the big question.

Was the employee fired for revealing an uncomfortable truth (as some suspect) or was he fired for breaking a real no-discounting policy.

If he can prove the uncomfortable truth and can provide evidence that other reps were doing the same thing he may have legal recourse since he was singled out and "made an example" as some have speculated. I love Tesla, but EM seems to have no clue about sales or how to harness the incredible brand loyalty. It seems that he is crippling his sales team with BS claims about everybody pays the same. Hell even the referral program is a fricking discount program. I would bet the sales climate there has gotta be horrible, EM thinks they are glorified trade show babes that has gotta suck, no wonder their reps seem so nervous and overly measured when they answer any question you ask. Poor bastards must dread going to work everyday. I bet a quick email discovery would prove it.

 

[Krugerrand]

...but when I get unsolicited commercial advertisements, I assume they're intended for publication.

The discussion is not about 'unsolicited commercial advertisements' via email, though some people have tried to make it about that or have confused themselves thinking it's about that and nobody is willing to even let me rummage through their junk mail - and we know why. And no I don't want to impersonate you, got enough problems of my own.

The email sent by the Tesla employee was in fact 'wanted' since the OP gave Tesla their email addy and/or never informed Tesla to take them off the email list. Never mind the fact that once it's sent by a named employee of a company, and you're able to reply directly to that named employee rather than some generic addy, it's a whole new ballgame. I understand that there are people who think they can do whatever they want with emails they receive, but that's only because they've never had anyone use such a communication against them, or been impacted in a serious negative way by someone sharing an email, or considered consequences etc...

 

[mongo]

I may be wrong,but I think that there is a problem in communication regarding paying the same for a car.

For the exact same car (same VIN) everyone pays the same price at any single point in time. There is no traditional haggling.

The price of a specific car can change over time due to: mileage, time since manufacture, change in standard equipment. However, that reduced price is the same for everyone.

The price of a specific type of car (model, option packages) does vary, due to above reasons. But again, everyone pays that price.

Again semantics: the purchaser is not getting a discount, the car has a discount.

Tesla needs to provide incentive for people to purchase vehicles with showroom wear and potentially previous gen equipment. How they go about letting everyone know about these vehicles equally is where I feel they could improve.

Also regarding sub 50 mile reduced price inventory. The vehicles that sit in the showrooms get lots of door and seat cycles, along with some wear and tear, but no miles.

 

[Az_Rael]

The email sent by the Tesla employee was in fact 'wanted' since the OP gave Tesla their email addy and/or never informed Tesla to take them off the email list.

I might agree with this if Tesla would let me be removed from sales/marketing e-mails. I let them have my e-mail so that I get important updates about the vehicle I own such as recalls or info on new policies such as the idle fees. They send me sales e-mails in addition those actual important e-mails. I can't choose what types of communication I want to receive from Tesla - it's all or nothing.

What's even more annoying to me is we have received unsolicited sales phone calls from Tesla Energy. Tesla Motors has my phone number so they can call me when my car is done from service. But apparently that phone number once in the system, now gets shared with Tesla Energy too, as I have never given them ANY of my information.