It's not about can't afford it.
I am not going to take multiple hits to my credit for a freaking car. And I have very good credit and I am not going to lower multiple times just to get a Tesla.
Especially when someone is clearly serious. They submit a trade quote, I offered to put a few grand down on it (I miss the days of credit card, but was going to transfer from my checking), but nothing will hold that car for you with Tesla. If tesla can't get their side organized, well they should be ready for having to spend a bunch of time hounding the customer to get their stuff organized. Plus I wasted at least three call people's time (probably 20 minutes each time, so an hour of labor) to just keep bugging them to go faster with the trade quote. If they had just let me "accept" the car with a down payment or trade offer and then given me a decent window (7 to 10 days to account for holidays or weekends) I wouldn't have had to call and use up labor time. Now think about if a bunch of people are having to call to get them to move faster and how much wasted time that is. Just do it right the first time and it's faster, cheaper, and better experience for the customer.
Don't get me wrong, it's 10,000 times better than a normal car dealer, but there is so much room for someone else to come by and actually refine this digital experience and nail it. Then Tesla is going to have catching up to do, not leading the pack.
And further, this is the 3rd Tesla and each and every time the sales experience was way less than stellar and required multiple calls from me to make sure they were getting stuff done. Three years ago I was telling friends if they buy a Tesla the only downside is that THEY need to be the ones to stay on top of Tesla and call in to get documents for their lender or make sure things are moving forward etc. This isn't a one off where I was stupid and forgot the plates, this is more of the same. AND, even if I was stupid and forgot the plates, a good process with a good experience would have THEM reminding me and that being part of a checklist. That avoids posts like this and maybe someone on the fence thinking "Eh... I'll stick with Polestar instead, I had decent experience with my Volvo dealer before and I don't really like this digital hands off thing."
Just be better. Be the best you can be. Why settle for "eh, it kinda works but as long as we sell the cars and get paid."
I mean the engineering side must be pushing for being the best in everything. The software is so much better. The charge speed. The charge network. The performance of the cars.
Like finally nail down the delivery side and customer service side.
Oh, also, the nice automated text messages I kept getting bugging me to schedule delivery that also ended with "reply to this message if you need help or have questions." NEVER got a reply back. Not once on the five or six times I sent a message back asking for help. Remove that option if you're not going to stay on top of it. I am less annoyed if the option isn't there vs if it is and you ignore it.