Tesla's production number growth and impact on Service Centers

[Knightshade]

What matters to most people is how much service a car requires not how much scheduled service a car requires.

I dunno about you but for me I care a great deal more about "scheduled service that will cost thousands over the life of the car" versus "Had to spend 20 minutes getting my door adjusted for free"

Tesla doesn't list 12V battery replacement on their scheduled service yet they have to replaced twice as often as an ICE vehicle and they're more expensive.

Do we know that's the case for the Model 3? I wouldn't think anybody has anything approaching useful data to make that claim yet.

Toyota sold about 10 million vehicles in the US over the last 4 years and has about 1200 dealers.
Tesla has sold about 400,000 vehicles total in the US and has 77 service centers.

This ignores the massive difference that Toyotas can freely and easily be worked on both at home, and at many many thousands of independent shops.

Teslas, not so much, since they won't sell most parts to end users or 3rd party shops (excluding body repair if you're certified).

 

[Daniel in SD]

I dunno about you but for me I care a great deal more about "scheduled service that will cost thousands over the life of the car" versus "Had to spend 20 minutes getting my door adjusted for free"

The brake fluid and coolant change on the Model 3 are not cheap and out of warranty service is not cheap either. I'm not expecting the Model 3 to have lower out of warranty service costs relative to a good ICE vehicle.

Do we know that's the case for the Model 3? I wouldn't think anybody has anything approaching useful data to make that claim yet.

You can hear the main relay open while parked and then close again to charge the 12V battery. I don't think anyone has taken exact measurements yet.

This ignores the massive difference that Toyotas can freely and easily be worked on both at home, and at many many thousands of independent shops.

That's why I only included sales over the last 4 years, to mostly include cars under warranty. Presumably Toyota dealers are also doing some service on cars older than 4 years.
My whole point is that Tesla would have enough service centers if their cars required as little service as proponents claim.
It would be interesting to see more rigorous data on how much service Teslas require. Anecdotally, from people I know, it seems like a whole lot!

 

[Knightshade]

The brake fluid and coolant change on the Model 3 are not cheap and out of warranty service is not cheap either. I'm not expecting the Model 3 to have lower out of warranty service costs relative to a good ICE vehicle.

brake fluid is the one thing I'd expect could be done anywhere, not just "at" Tesla, unless there's something weird about the system I'm unaware of (which is entirely possible). So that's the same price as anybody else... which should be around 100ish bucks.

Does any model 3 have enough time/miles on it to need coolant service yet where we know the price on that?

You can hear the main relay open while parked and then close again to charge the 12V battery. I don't think anyone has taken exact measurements yet.

Not sure how/why that for sure gets us to the claim you made?

The first model 3s are almost 1.5 years old now... (July 2017) and I haven't heard much of 12vs needing replacements yet though, should be pretty close if it needs it 2x as often as say my Lexus that needed 12v replacement every 3-4 years.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Do we know that's the case for the Model 3? I wouldn't think anybody has anything approaching useful data to make that claim yet.

Probably a reasonable assumption, given the cycling of the 12V. Though I guess they did put a larger AGM battery in the Model 3 so maybe it will last proportionately longer. But 12V batteries have limited cycles, even really good ones.

This ignores the massive difference that Toyotas can freely and easily be worked on both at home, and at many many thousands of independent shops.

Teslas, not so much, since they won't sell most parts to end users or 3rd party shops (excluding body repair if you're certified).

Definitely this is something Tesla should work on. Make it really easy to get info to properly service the vehicles. Training should be less intensive than ICE vehicles, as they are a LOT less complicated and really simple vehicles. Would be great to have a bunch of 3rd party shops and owners working on vehicles with the full information from the factory service manual. Makes everything so much easier. And the parts issue would be good to resolve too. Just because Tesla is a luxury car maker doesn’t mean they have to act like a cartel and control the part supply (like BMW, etc.).

 

[Knightshade]

Probably a reasonable assumption, given the cycling of the 12V. Though I guess they did put a larger AGM battery in the Model 3 so maybe it will last proportionately longer. But 12V batteries have limited cycles, even really good ones.

Sure- but given there are differences like the larger AGM battery I don't think we can just hand-waive that it'll be double the replacement frequency of ICE cars (many of which still use flooded batteries while we're at it) until we have some real world data on that.

Definitely this is something Tesla should work on. Make it really easy to get info to properly service the vehicles. Training should be less intensive than ICE vehicles, as they are a LOT less complicated and really simple vehicles. Would be great to have a bunch of 3rd party shops and owners working on vehicles with the full information from the factory service manual. Makes everything so much easier. And the parts issue would be good to resolve too. Just because Tesla is a luxury car maker doesn’t mean they have to act like a cartel and control the part supply (like BMW, etc.).

Well, first they need to get a supply chain that can handle their own service centers- which they don't appear to have yet since we've had folks waiting weeks or months on parts even pretty recently.

After that by all means it'd be nice if they did something similar to the "certified" program for body shops where once you complete whatever training/testing they open up their systems and let you order all relevant parts.

(I kinda wish they'd also let end users order regular parts but I guess they're hoping to avoid "Man electrocutes himself trying to replace part on his Tesla" headlines?)

 

[mikefocke]

Service convenience and parts availability are two important items. One of my vehicles is a Prius and I had a rare (defined as no other report of a similar error message when googled) problem. One problem in 6+ years. My dealer was 2 miles away in my small town. Parts for such a rare failure were 3 days. Technician had access to zone level techs and then to design engineers. As I read the Tesla forums, that would be a very untypical experience for a Tesla owner. That is the level of service availability I expect especially from a car which would cost $20k more than a lowly Prius.

I was about to buy one but the nearest anything is 60 miles away and, no matter if a mobile repair or a service center, I think the distance matters. I can take my car, if it gets dinged, to a dozen repair shops in my small town. And they can get parts. No months long waits as have been reported too often.

I expect convenience at this price point especially. I got rid of my last 3 cars precisely because service was either not local or not done right.

If you are in CA, it may be different. With the pressure on Tesla for profits, will their investment in support infrastructure be able to keep up with demand?

Love the vision. Love the concept. Love the car. Just not for me and I suppose for others.

I've owned about 6 cars in their first month of availability. Every one a long term disaster. Not one kept beyond the warranty period. And I lived in a big city not a mile from those dealers.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Sure- but given there are differences like the larger AGM battery I don't think we can just hand-waive that it'll be double the replacement frequency of ICE cars (many of which still use flooded batteries while we're at it) until we have some real world data on that.

A coworker did already get their Model 3 12V replaced but it could have been related to their dashcam. AGM batteries are more expensive.

(I kinda wish they'd also let end users order regular parts but I guess they're hoping to avoid "Man electrocutes himself trying to replace part on his Tesla" headlines?)

Every other manufacturer does sell parts including for their electric vehicles. This is a huge advantage of the dealership model. I can order OEM parts online for my other cars.

 

[TeeEmCee]

I dunno about you but for me I care a great deal more about "scheduled service that will cost thousands over the life of the car" versus "Had to spend 20 minutes getting my door adjusted for free"

If you replaced that with “16 workdays ruined by trips to the SC in 4 months, with the door still not correctly aligned”, the comparison would look less favorable.

 

[Knightshade]

If you replaced that with “16 workdays ruined by trips to the SC in 4 months, with the door still not correctly aligned”, the comparison would look less favorable.

Possibly (though I'd say if the same SC couldn't get it right after 2 tries I'd ask them to find someone else to do it)

To be honest one of the factors that got me on board with buying a first-year Tesla model (well, technically second since they made a few in 2017) is there's an SC about 10 minutes from where I work.

If I were one of the "It's 3 hours to the nearest SC" folks I probably would've just kept my Lexus.

FWIW only things I've needed the SC for was when I had to physically go there a few times to get them to deal with non-repair items that delivery/sales completely dropped the ball on.... (not providing 2 keycards, my car not being shown as delivered for the app, delivery having forgotten to do a state inspection, not having gotten an accurate Monroney sticker at delivery, etc).... that's one of the things I mentioned earlier in that other aspects of Tesla screwups are eating into SC time needlessly.... zero of those things should have involved the SC at all if they'd been done right by other parts of the company.

 

[TeeEmCee]

Possibly (though I'd say if the same SC couldn't get it right after 2 tries I'd ask them to find someone else to do it)

To be honest one of the factors that got me on board with buying a first-year Tesla model (well, technically second since they made a few in 2017) is there's an SC about 10 minutes from where I work.

If I were one of the "It's 3 hours to the nearest SC" folks I probably would've just kept my Lexus.

FWIW only things I've needed the SC for was when I had to physically go there a few times to get them to deal with non-repair items that delivery/sales completely dropped the ball on.... (not providing 2 keycards, my car not being shown as delivered for the app, delivery having forgotten to do a state inspection, not having gotten an accurate Monroney sticker at delivery, etc).... that's one of the things I mentioned earlier in that other aspects of Tesla screwups are eating into SC time needlessly.... zero of those things should have involved the SC at all if they'd been done right by other parts of the company.

The majority of things I had to deal with were things that were broken to begin with or were otherwise broken by the SC, not so much honest defects that appeared after delivery.

 

[stonelance]

Over 4 months ago i took my car in to get some issues from delivery fixed. They needed to order parts, and waited to fix most of the issues until the parts were in. 4 months later and I still haven't heard from them about the parts. I need to pester them in order to get service I guess.