S-2000 Roadster
#1244
A) No one in the world is authorized to fix any drivetrain except an employee of that same company. That's how warranty repairs work. They control manufacturing and repairs, and they only warrant the work that they do. Granted, you could have non-warranty work done on your non-Tesla drivetrain anywhere you like, but if the car is under warranty then why would you elect to pay for repairs in the first place? Yes, manufacturers other than Tesla Motors enjoy a healthy community of third-party service shops, but the fact is that during your warranty you have to go to the OEM dealer service for all warranty work.No one in the world is authorized to fix a Tesla drivetrain but a Tesla employee. Arguably no one in the world is able to fix a Tesla but a Tesla employee with the resources of the manual, the engineers in the Bay Area that they send files and batteries to for expert commands on what to do. If you want to fix the car in the way you want at the price you want you have no choice.
B) If you want to do anything the way you want at the price you want then you have no choice. That's a basic fact of economics. The price is set by mutual agreement between the party doing the service and the party paying for the service. There might be market trends for pricing such that you never really have to negotiate, but you're certainly not able to make up any price that you want and force someone to perform a service the way you want at the price you want. Again, I agree that we have no choices outside Tesla Store service, and thus there really is no market competition for non-warranty repairs. But none of this has anything to do with warranty work, despite being a valid topic for complaint.
I fully appreciate the frustrations to which you're hinting. Having owned several rare, exotic vehicles, I have learned the hard way that sometimes nobody in town has the skills necessary for certain repairs. This is particularly bad when even the OEM dealership doesn't have the skills. In these cases, you have to learn how to do the service yourself or locate an expert who can and then be prepared to pay the costs.
We've been spoiled by highly reliable cars with 100,000 mile service intervals and extended warranties, but none of the advancements of the automotive industry can change the fact that cutting-edge technology is expensive to maintain.