I was among the people who were surprised by Tesla’s announcement to move all sales online and close many of your retail locations (keeping a small number of stores as galleries).

While surprised with this announcement, I think there is a better solution for Tesla then Retail – You can achieve the benefits of a retail sales presence with far less cost with a Mobile Sales organization!

A Mobile Sales organization has no real estate costs, or paying people to wait for foot traffic, or helping “window shoppers”. The team can be 100% focused on interested customers – and can be focused on and support the higher end and existing models – so the costs are aligned with the higher margin products … and since the visits in many cases will be to people’s homes there is tremendous opportunity to review solar roof options!

Without a Tesla paid sales presence, you risk maintaining high levels of demand for the 35k Model 3, but being challenged to maintain the demand for the more profitable products. With a Mobile Sales organization, you will be able to:

• Bring forward demand from people not yet ready to “buy before I try”

• Help customers see the value of the higher price point cars

Tesla is already investing in Mobile Service – some of the infrastructure (like scheduling) can easily be re-used – and the financial models/benefits should be very similar – you can achieve greater reach more quickly, with far less fixed cost investment!