A Product Perspective: 3 Ways Tesla Can Improve its Buying Experience

Ben Hommerding
4 min readApr 25, 2021

Overall, purchasing a Tesla is a great experience. You can read all about it in my previous posts. I have been spending some time in a product management role at work, and as I have gone through the buying experience, I was able to apply some of those new skills to surface three ways Tesla could improve their customer experience.

Photo by Alex King on Unsplash

1. Provide Better Timeline Information

The first way Tesla could improve the buying experience is to provide better timeline information or estimates. For example, with my trade-in finalization, they could have told me that finalization typically completes within 72 hours.

Even better, they could provide a green, yellow, red indicator to let you better track the status of each part of the process. Green to let you know it’s been completed, yellow to indicate pending, and red to let you know something requires your attention.

The current dashboard doesn’t give any of those details, and Tesla left me wondering if everything was ok several times throughout the process.

2. Provide Customized Information

Tesla is as much a technology company as they are a car company. They have databases of information about each state’s regulations and requirements for registration and insurance. In their dashboard, they provide you this link to their registration information, for example.

If you look at California (which is lumped in with AZ, CA, GA, IL, OR), the information states:

Tesla will complete registration and the DMV will mail your title and registration card.

You will receive a temporary registration placard to operate your vehicle while Tesla processes registration.

The language above is very confusing to me still. Will I get new license plates? The message only states I will get a title and registration card. I have received the title, but 4 weeks after purchase, I do not have new plates. I’m told by friends that I will get plates in the mail.

If you look at other states, the information actually states that you will receive plates as well.

Tesla will complete registration and mail your title and registration card.

Tesla will mail your plates and registration once processing is complete.

Rather than lump states together and force customers to look at the link and determine what will happen, Tesla should provide your state's info in your dashboard.

Before taking delivery, you must provide proof of insurance. You are again sent to a separate link to determine your own situation. Telsa could vastly improve this experience by simply providing the correct information to you in the dashboard. Along with that, they should tell you exactly what documentation to provide. Is it your insurance card or a pdf of your policy? Tesla doesn’t specify and that it leads to buyer stress.

Photo by Benjamin Elliott on Unsplash

3. Rebate Help

The final thing Tela could do to help improve the buying experience is to help the customer with available rebates in their state. In California, we have a rebate incentive. However, trying to figure your way through this incentive is already maze-like. With Tesla documentation, it’s even more difficult because the process is all done online.

Tesla could give you a jump-start by providing the link to your state's rebate application and telling you which documents and dates you need to provide in the process. The current rebates are part of why many people purchase a new EV, and Tesla would do well to help its customers more easily figure out how to take advantage of these incentives. This might require additional work on Tesla’s end, but the value to the customer would be tremendous.

Those are the three ways I think Tesla could provide a better customer buying experience. The process is already great, but these improvements would make it exceptional.

If you plan to purchase a new Tesla, use the referral link below to get 1000 free Supercharging miles as you start the buying process.

My next article will be my first-month impressions and cost of ownership. Feel free to leave questions and suggestions for other articles.

Current Milage on the Road to 500,000 Miles: 595 Miles

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