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Upcoming Announcement About Revolutionizing Service

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This was in the shareholder letter: "Tesla is pioneering a new approach to vehicle servicing that we believe will revolutionize the customer experience. An announcement about this will be forthcoming shortly." Wonder what this could be? Something to look forward to.

I noticed this as well. It's hard to imagine how Tesla could further revolutionize the customer experience. I'm going to guess that it has something to do with more features on mobile app that update you on service status. That would be cool.
 
Yes a service app would be great. Also what would really be revolutionary is free service for the life of the car or as long as you owned the car! I am not sure if that would be feasible. But it would go along nicely with the free supercharging for the life of the car. Unlike ICE car dealerships, Elon did say Tesla was not out to make money on service. So instead of soaking owners for repairs to things that should not have broken in the first place they could make money on other value added things like car upgrades and insurance repairs. All this would tend to boost resale value which would help Tesla's financing with guaranteed buyback program.
 
Yes a service app would be great. Also what would really be revolutionary is free service for the life of the car or as long as you owned the car! I am not sure if that would be feasible. But it would go along nicely with the free supercharging for the life of the car. Unlike ICE car dealerships, Elon did say Tesla was not out to make money on service. So instead of soaking owners for repairs to things that should not have broken in the first place they could make money on other value added things like car upgrades and insurance repairs. All this would tend to boost resale value which would help Tesla's financing with guaranteed buyback program.
I think the point of not making a profit from service was not to just give away free service. It would be a break-even service, not charging a Tesla costumer more then it costs to actually fix the car.
 
That's right. To make no profit from service, but also not to make a loss from service.

I'm realizing that Tesla has inserted itself into a slightly different market: the aftermarket improvements market. Consider the second row cupholders.

Tesla may not be "making money on service", but they're making money on extras installed by the service centers after the initial sale of the car.
 
A truly revolutionary concept, comrade! :wink:

:wink:

Sorry for any confusion, people, I couldn't resist the pun. :D

More seriously, they could revolutionize service the way they have revolutionized refueling with the Supercharger model. Announce that instead of buying a few years of service you buy lifetime service. The benefits would be:
- Tesla gets money up front
- It emphasizes one of the benefits of BEVs.
- It helps maintain vehicle value over the long term.
- It ensures the business remains focused on the pursuit of excellence.
- It pisses NADA off even more. :D

They could even just build it into the price and call it free-for-life.
 
One year later: Creating the World’s Best Service and Warranty Program

Well, note quite a year, closer to 11 months. Back on April 26th 2013, Tesla posted this:
Creating the World’s Best Service and Warranty Program | Blog | Tesla Motors

I was at my local service center today who are, as always, chock full of awesomeness.

I'm less pleased about the corporate side of that customer care though, specifically the loaner cars. I have something that needs to be fixed so I asked about a loaner. They have none. In talking a bit with the Service Center folks, they're in a real bind. Customers aren't happy loaners aren't available, but the service center has no control over it.

  • They don't know when cars will arrive
  • They have no idea how long they'll be around, most are sold almost instantly
  • They've relayed the problem up to corporate many times, but there's been no change in policy
  • I could get an Enterprise rental, but I have to go there myself and do the arrangements. I guess Tesla either has an account or I get reimbursed, but I didn't get detail on this option.
They will pick up/drop off your car so if it's a one day fix they'll largely come to you, go fix it and bring it back, which is a big help.

Having loaners though, top of the line loaners no less, was something promised in that blog post and it's simply not happening. The cars sell out soon as they arrive and disappear. The incredibly sad part is Tesla can have the same overall sales throughput on loaners, but just make sure the old ones can't be sold until the replacements are on the way.

I suppose, if folks want to be heard, you'll have to email/contact someone in corporate because while the service center folks are definitely fighting on our behalf, corporate isn't listening. Nearly every dealership has loaners. BMW, Acura, any I've dealt with or looked at all have loaners nearly 100% of the time. Hell, even the body shop I went to for a bumper repair had a free loaner.

I'm not sure where to email these days. There used to be an [email protected], but it's not advertised as a contact point anywhere on their website anymore. In fact, I can't find any email address on the website for owners anymore, just a phone number. Can anyone else chime in if they know a good email address to use?
 
Why were the loaners allowed to be sold in the first place? Seems that is the root of the problem.....
They were always intended as an item to sell (see the blog post). The impression was that it was so current customers could easily trade in for a newer car, but that's not how it worked out. And that's fine. If Tesla wants a small amount of cars for immediate sale, I'm good with that. Tesla can have that though without denying customers use of loaners. Simply only allow a sale of the existing loaner once the new one was about to arrive. They'd still be selling every loaner they get, so it's not reducing sales (except slightly due to mileage/age depreciation).
 
Wasn't there a rumored policy change that loaners couldn't be sold until they have X miles on them (5k I think)? ckessel, where are you?
In Portland, OR. I think though that loaners are for sale nation wide, not just locally. I know several months back one of the showroom folks said the floor model was sold to someone back east.

- - - Updated - - -

And didn't Elon recently announce that henceforth, loaners would be in service for 90 days as loaners, before they could be sold?
I don't recall, but the problem is what was said (either by Elon recently or 11 months ago in the blog post), and what's happening aren't matching up.

My local service folks really go above and beyond. I love them, they're awesome. I wish Tesla would support them on this. It's putting them in a bad spot, forced to deal with customers expecting what Tesla corporate has said, but the local guys have zero power to follow through on those promises.

I keep coming back to the thought that it seems like such a simple policy change to not sell them until the replacements are on the way. I don't want to damage Tesla's ability to sell some cars directly, but that policy change should have almost no impact on the quantity of direct sales.