Tesla is doing well – and the British public can’t seem to get enough. At the end of March 2024, the company announced that it had sold its 200,000th car in the UK. To put that figure into perspective, the UK only saw the one millionth electric car hit its roads in February 2024. That means one fifth of all electric cars on UK roads are Teslas.
Tesla reckons its popularity is partly due to its unconventional sales strategy. The company operates on a direct-to-consumer model, meaning buyers don’t need to visit a dealership to get their hands on a car. They can simply poke around on the Tesla website and have the car delivered directly to their home or their place of work.
The company has also been working hard to improve its wait times. Over the past year, Tesla has restructured its production and logistics operations to cut delivery times down to a maximum of 30 days. This is a massive improvement because Tesla used to deliver its cars in quarterly chunks. That meant buyers could be forced to wait as long as three months before seeing their new car.
Tesla’s UK sales and delivery manager, Michael Oates, commented on the achievement saying: ‘Reaching this milestone of 200,000 deliveries shows how far Tesla has contributed to the UK’s transition to sustainable energy. More and more customers are not just looking towards Tesla as an option for sustainability, but also for safety and affordability.’
How else is Tesla improving the appeal of its cars?
With its pricing, of course. Not in the way you’re used to, though. In the past Tesla, did this with a notoriously volatile pricing strategy for its new cars. The Model 3 and Model Y, for example, received a series of price reductions during 2023, as the brand fought to keep itself near the top of the EV sales charts in the face of its newer rivals.
But Tesla is adamant that is it has now stabilised its new car prices, which will no doubt help to improve the company’s residual values. Instead, Tesla will seek to make its cars more affordable to those on tighter budgets with an expanded approved used scheme. To give you the condensed version, Tesla plans to build up a stock of well-maintained cars and sell them back to public through a range of certified used car hubs.
Tesla is also trying to make its maintenance practices more convenient for its owners. Like its sales and delivery programme, the firm has a direct-to-consumer strategy – and it claims that it can fix 50 percent of its cars using mobile servicing.
Perhaps the biggest reason for buying a Tesla, however, is the company’s Supercharger network. Tesla has already installed 1,400 chargers in 140 locations up and down the UK – and it plans to grow that number with the roll out of its new V4 Superchargers.
These new chargers can deliver up to 250kW of DC power, which is enough to thrash a Model Y’s battery from zero to 80% capacity in just half an hour. For those in need of an EV that can cover long distances, those sorts of charging speeds are non-negotiable.
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