ref http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-Tred-Offers-Plugin-Test-Drives-Brought-to-You-tp4666840.html ]
Just when dealerships are finally being truthfully shown to be falling down on the job at selling plugins: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-Dealerships-Are-Slowing-Plugin-Sales-Caveat-emptor-tp4666689.html tred.com comes along to make up for their short-falls/anti-plugin bias/hatred. I see that a media outlet did a piece on tred.com back in Jun 2013 http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/19/tred-launch-seattle/ And I found some more links on them: https://www.facebook.com/tredsite/info http://www.linkedin.com/company/tred https://www.tred.com/test-drive-blog/tred-for-tots/ The business-model fo bringing the plugin to the customer, and then doing the last step of getting the interested-customer with an eager-to-sell dealer will help smooth over the void caused by dealership's old-school ice-head sales-rep attitudes. But I am thinking there is more to this that can happen. Synergies When two or more groups have common interests, there is a possibility of developing a synergy between them that helps both/all (win-win+). EAA Chapters or EV groups, long have tried hard to get the public to ride in plugins to let them think with their other set of brains (the ones they sit on). Once the public actually rides or drives a plugin, they have an awakening or epiphany that these plugins are really quite good. When a Chapter or group wants to arrange an EVent, they mostly rely on their members that have plugins as dealerships attending these Events are rare if only for the huge ones, like National Plug in Day. And even then, it is usually handled by sales reps that do not want to be there (they are more used to making a quick profit off their salesmanship, than actually just talking to the the public without a sales credit). So, tred.com could be a solution. I contacted them. They are not apposed to the idea. I suggested to them that they get to know the local EAA Chapter(S) or EV group(s) that is in their sales region. They replied that they are game for that. Tred.com also mentioned that while they are currently Seattle, WA based, they do have plans to expand, possibly to the L.A., CA area. Imagine if tred.com would bring a couple of plugins to your EVent, and help with enticing the public to get to know them, and possibly get feedback from tred.com afterward as to how many at an EVent they hooked up with a dealer that made a sale. It could be more gratifying for a nonprofit to actually know how many more plugins are getting on the road because of their pubic EVent efforts. {brucedp.150m.com} -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-Tred-Offers-Plugin-Test-Drives-Brought-to-You-tp4666840p4666852.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
