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Tesla wants feedback on any poor (or great!) customer experiences

I was intrigued by this thread (sorry it's locked) where @Chris10 had an amazing customer experience, but @DavidG had a pretty poor one. Elon and George have set very high expectations for both vehicle quality and customer experience and clearly DavidG's experience was not what TM (or any of us) would like.

I'm pretty passionate about customer experience myself and knowing how difficult it is for any company to stay on top of every customer touch I thought I owed it to TM and all of us to make sure DavidG's story got to the right place.

I happen to know (be acquainted with) a senior customer experience guy at TM. I reached out to him an pointed out DavidG's story.

He called me today and thanked me for the feedback. He says his team is trying to stay on top of all the issues and everything that is going on in the forum, but there are always growing pains. He REALLY wants to know about ANY experience problems there are out there, and it wouldn't hurt to throw in some good experiences too. :-)

He says that will to straight to his team, and if you prefer you can get them on 877.778.3752 He promises that the phone should go straight through to the team and you shouldn't need to "press 1 for customer service"

I think we owe it to all current and future Model S (and follow on) owners to help TM stay on track and ensure the customer experience is the best in the industry. Please make sure the ownership team hears about any problems. Its they only way they'll be able to fix them.

Nice thinking.

Tesla, why you need someone else to ask this simple questions? Most of us are big fans and are happy to help!

Just called for a status update. Call was answered on the first ring and I was able to get answers to my questions. Thank you for giving us the phone number, Nick.

@ nickjhowe - I sent an email 6 days ago to asking for help on an issue in the Software Enhancements thread. I have yet to receive a response. I plan to send a follow-up email tomorrow. I wonder if it would do any good to include your contact as a Cc on my follow-up email. If you think yes, maybe you can send me his email address at Thanks, Rod.

I was test driving the Model S in San Diego and was satisfied in general but have 2 things that did not.
1. Even with the creep mode on the car rolls backward when releasing the brake when stopping on an uphill road. When standing in a line on a traffic light on an uphill road that makes we very uncomfortable to worry not to hit the car behind me. Your engineers should get a hand on a BMW ActiveE, when releasing the brake the car still stands still (braking) until you touch the accelleration paddle.
2. There needs to be a setting to more agressively use of the regenerative braking (right now there is low and standard), there should be a high setting also. Again in the BMW ActiveE I barely use the brake, all what I do is get off the accelleration and the regenerative braking stopps the car for me. Just at the end when the car stopps I put my foot on the brake.
I still are eager to get the Model S as soon as possible, great car.

@pahlemann, I think you are speaking about "hill assist". I think this is one of the things that are in their way into software, but just isn't quite here yet.

For parking I think it could be possible to make "parking mode" for a car where accelerator changes from torque to speed. Computer does the rest (low speed obviously). I mean no matter if you are going uphill, downhill, bumpy parking lot, slippery or whatever, when you press pedal this much car goes at this speed at the direction your gear selector points it.

One of the things that ICE cars could not do, but what should be rather trivial to do with BEV:s.

Seems like the improved communications push may be suffering from sprinter burn-out! It can't be sustained without adequate staff and tight internal commlines.

Related, I've noticed a bit of a push from PayPal, banks, ISPs etc. lately to quickly follow up contacts with surveys and questionaires on the "experience". Getting irritating. As are the robot-like "Did I resolve all your problems?" closing questions! Got to think up some doozies for the next one who asks that ...

I received an email response yesterday from the Tesla Ownership Team. The email noted that several customers emailed the team concerning my communications problem. Thanks for your help and support! FYI here is my post from the Software Enhancement thread concerning Tesla’s response:

“I recently exchanged emails with the Tesla Ownership Experience Team. I told them about our software enhancement list and asked if they would forward the information on to the Tesla team responsible for selecting and implementing software enhancements. The Ownership Team told me that they forwarded the information to the appropriate Engineering and User Interface teams. I’m sure there many issues Tesla has to consider when selecting software enhancements, but I hope that our inputs will be seen as a useful resource.

@ DouglasR – The Tesla Ownership Experience Team verified that the Model S does not currently have the mechanical components necessary for power folding side mirrors. So, this feature cannot be implemented via software only and therefore cannot be added to our list.”


IMHO, unless you drive like a out of control maniac, I find that the normal regen mode is more than enough for everyday safe driving.

In some places if you don't tailgate with the crowd, the traffic closes in on you and nips your heels (and elbows). And regen is only so-so for tailgating.

Speaking of hill hold or hill assist:
I've done a fair bit of driving in SF and on mountain roads in the last couple of weeks, and I don't miss hill hold much.
I thought I would, but it's not that bad with the creep mode on.
The only funny episode I had is when I rolled forward from my driveway (it's pretty steep), pushed the accelerator and to my complete surprise the car started backing up.
Then I realized that I was still in Reverse (!), but the car happily rolled forward like it was in N or D.
No harm done, was just me being a half-asleep dork, but something to keep in mind, check your gear ;)


The reverse beeping in the Prius has saved me a couple of times when I've flubbed a shift. This should be a configurable option.

Update: I just got off the phone with my Tesla contact. I had expressed some frustration to him that despite NKincaid's postings on the Bulletin Board, TM seemed to be deathly silent on many questions: when is 3G pricing coming out? Will we get 4G? When will we be able to buy the service package/extended warranty? Where are there multiple point releases for the same software (e.g. 2 versions of 4.2)? When/where are the supercharges coming?

I suggested that a lot of people have a lot of questions that don't seem to be getting answered.

His response was in several parts:

  1. There aren't that many questions/concerns being sent to, so maybe I'm overstating the issue
  2. There's a lot they can't say because it has commercial or contractual impacts - e.g., they don't want to say too much about future supercharger locations because it might drive up the real estate cost
  3. The gave dates in the past that they didn't meet and upset a lot of people; they don't want to do that again. They feel people will be more upset by them missing dates than by them not giving possibly incorrect dates
  4. They really don't know the timing of a lot of things. When they know they'll tell us
  5. They are going to try to put more effort into the bulletin board to get info out there
  6. Posting a comment/question to the general TM forum is NOT the same as sending an email to Ownership.

So....if there's info you want to hear, or problems you are experiencing MAKE SURE YOU SEND AN EMAIL TO OWNERSHIP. They DO read the emails, and its the best way to influence their behaviour.


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