Source: Tiger Sniff App
On January 14, Tesla announced the launch of the "Year of the Tiger" charging New Year gift package, and car owners who purchase Tesla charging New Year gift packs can enjoy an unlimited number of times and unlimited mileage supercharging experience during the Spring Festival, which is priced at 426 yuan and limited to 3,000 copies. According to the custom of Tesla's online store, the gift package is sold out at the beginning of the sale.
Giving "big gifts" every New Year's Day is a routine operation of Tesla. During last year's Spring Festival and May Day, Tesla China sent free EAP enhanced automatic assisted driving benefits to car owners. Of course, these actions may only be appearances. Tesla China, which has experienced a round of public opinion pressure in 2021, in addition to selling cars hard, is also trying to use its own way to slowly make up for the lack of "user service" sections.
First, the Tesla store is new
In July 2020, as the stock price grew wildly, Tesla launched a "short" shorts in the online store to ridicule and fight back against the bears. The shorts cost $69.42 at the time, or about 500 yuan. After that, tesla online stores sold more and more outrageous things. For example, a wine bottle priced at 779 yuan, a charging treasure of 489 yuan, and a whistle of 350 yuan.
On January 14, Tesla's online store was launched again.
This time Tesla launched a charging New Year gift package, although there is no physical package, but tesla China team still carefully designed a set of "Year of the Tiger" element pattern, and from the "tiger" word deliberately picked out a T letter, meaning Tesla's English name Tesla.
After the purchased Lunar New Year gift package takes effect, the owner goes to any Tesla supercharger station in the country to charge without paying a separate charging fee. Valid from 0:00 on January 26, 2022 to 24:00 on February 8, 2022, that is, from the beginning of the Lunar New Year until the eighth day of the first lunar month.
Up to now, Tesla has built and opened 1,000+ overcharge stations and 8,000+ supercharging piles in Chinese mainland, and is equipped with 700+ destination charging stations and 1800+ destination charging piles, covering more than 360 cities and regions across the country.
Theoretically, Tesla can make a lot of money by charging the New Year gift package, the price of the gift package is 426 yuan, and with tesla's annual sales of nearly 500,000 vehicles in China, it is not a problem to increase the turnover of tens of millions.
But in the end, Tesla China played "hunger marketing", limited to 3,000 sales.
On the top, some Tesla owners said that it took 40 minutes to brush, but more owners are sorry to return. There are also car owners who stand up and rationally analyze a wave: if you run high-speed, the electricity cost of 1,000 kilometers is about 200 yuan, and this gift package must at least run 2,000 kilometers to return to the cost. The effective period of the package is only 15 days, and the owners who can run more than 2,000 kilometers during this period are estimated to be really not many.
Somewhat different from the way China's "New Year gift package" is played, Tesla also sent a wave of "benefits" in the United States during the Christmas period in 2021. Between December 23, 2021 and December 26, 2021, around Christmas, Tesla will charge some supercharger stations in 11 continents, including Arizona and California, for free during off-peak hours (before 10 a.m. and after 7 p.m.).
Compared with charging packages, more car owners with long-distance travel needs during the holidays may be more looking forward to opening the "EAP" function for free for a limited time. For example, @blue-green that little thing commented on Weibo: "Bao, the Spring Festival is limited to EAP, let me go back to my hometown to show the pendulum." @Tesla customer support Reply below the comment: "Bao, there is no relevant policy at present, it is recommended to pay attention to official news." ”
During the Spring Festival last year, Tesla issued "EAP" free benefits to users. According to the official description at the time: during the experience, the vehicle will obtain functions including automatic assisted navigation driving (NoA), automatic auxiliary lane change, etc., in addition to the basic version of the auxiliary driving function that is standard for all models, to further enhance the safety and convenience of users' daily travel.
That EAP limited-time free benefit was opened on the return trip during the Spring Festival holiday, that is, from February 16, 2021 to February 26, 2021, to get the enhanced version of the automatic assisted driving time-limited free experience. By the May Day holiday last year, the benefits were increased again. Tesla launched 45 days of "Enhanced Automatic Assisted Driving (EAP)" free use of rights, free use of supercharger stations for the May Day holiday, and 25% off to replace air conditioning filters.
If Tesla owners who consider self-driving travel during the Spring Festival, whether it is free charging or free auto-assisted navigation driving functions, it is a fairly cost-effective holiday benefit. Compare Weilai and Xiaopeng, although they all have free power exchanges, free charging (there are restrictions on the number of times / mileage), but the weapon of long-distance travel - navigation assistance driving function, Weilai Xiaopeng has not done a limited time free activity during the holiday, Weilai NOP needs to spend 39,000 yuan to select, Xiaopeng high-speed NGP needs to spend 20,000 more upgrades.
Therefore, according to Tesla China's practice, there is a high probability that a wave of "EAP" limited-time free benefits will be launched before the Spring Festival. And because of the launch of the 426 yuan charging New Year gift package this time, then the free charging of last year's May Day holiday, this year's Spring Festival will inevitably not have any more.
Second, the lessons that should be made up should still be made up
Tesla's welfare can theoretically be understood as a form of "user service".
When it comes to Tesla's services, the discussion can't stop. Not long ago, Tao Lin, Tesla's vice president of external affairs, forwarded a Weibo about the activities of the riders' club, accompanied by a text, she wrote: "Make good use of resources and time, focusing on providing customers with truly valuable products and services." ”
As a result, several netizens under this weibo expressed doubts about pre-sales and after-sales service. For example, @climb on the baobab said: "Tesla's service personnel in various places need too much training, and the service attitude needs to be improved." Another user named Hwen, who @no desire is justgic, said: "Tesla lacks a user feedback mechanism, and I have a lot to say to your company's research and development team." ”
The pros and cons are always relative. Weilai, which calls itself a user enterprise, has brought about a round of "user-centered" car-making waves in China. Domestic car companies began to give meticulous care to users, and the needs of users were unconditionally met. In this way, Tesla seems to lag far behind the industry standard in terms of user service, and even there is a saying in the industry: "Tesla's service is no service."
The root cause of this gap is that Tesla and Weilai have some different angles of entry when understanding "user service".
It is not difficult to see from Tesla's holiday benefits that its services are often based on the functions of superchargering piles and automatic assisted driving software, starting from the perspective of energy and products. The services that Weilai is praised by users are more from the level of car life, including Weilai Center, substation, mobile service vehicles, and NIO Life.
In addition, in terms of scale, Tesla is difficult to maintain a meticulous "user service" like Weilai. Tesla China delivered 70,847 vehicles in December 2021 and 484,130 vehicles in an annual manner, according to the Association. Tesla's global deliveries last year were 936,000 units, accounting for 51.7% of the Chinese market. In contrast, the annual delivery volume of "Wei Xiaoli" did not exceed 100,000 vehicles, and the highest Xiaopeng was only 98,000 vehicles.
According to Tesla's size, to do lifestyle services, it is bound to cost a lot of money. Instead of this, it is better to hand over some user activity planning to the local car club, and Tesla can focus more resources and time on products and product derivation.
In fact, Tesla's localization operations in China are gradually moving towards the front of the stage. Recently, Tesla quietly launched the Tesla Mini Program, covering product purchase, finding charging stations, official information, Tesla Mall and other routine functions that these new domestic car-making forces have. And Tesla App, which is often complained about the slow response speed of the server, is also adding new features to keep up with the apps of new forces.
For example, in October last year, Tesla's Shanghai R&D and Innovation Center was completed and put into use. As Tesla's first R&D center set up overseas and based on vehicle development, a total of 28 laboratories have been set up, focusing on the development of Tesla's hardware and software, processes and technologies in China, while undertaking application adaptation and standard testing in the Chinese market, and participating in the research and development of global AI machine learning.
Of course, in the process of serving users, Tesla China still has a missing part, that is, user feedback. Compared with the user community that Weilai has created on the App that can speak freely, Tesla has not yet created an official user online platform in China. But this may have something to do with Musk's own style, like overseas users usually respond directly to Musk through social media platforms.
However, under the education of new car-making forces such as Weilai, car CEOs take the initiative to help users solve problems, and even send red envelopes and points to the user group during the New Year's Holiday have gradually become an industry trend. If you don't do it, it's like you're not paying attention to the user. On the contrary, Tesla's unattainable communication method is difficult to avoid being classified into the category of "poor service".
All in all, in the face of a huge user scale, when you can't ensure the uniform quality of service, Tesla will start from every charging station and every Tesla vehicle with more control to provide services and benefits.
But if you say it roughly, it is "cutting the door".