Yep, this.
If it were 5-10% or something of a premium, then maybe it'd be acceptable.
But I've looked into this a bunch of times, and even did the research based on dozens of locations out near the west coast... and there's just no way. To be able to do what we do here in NC out in CA, our costs would be between double and triple our current costs, but likely more. For the same shop space we have here we'd be paying low to mid five-figures
per month, which isn't practical on its face. If that were surmountable somehow, the operations costs are also way higher (cost of labor, materials, taxes, etc).
(Edit: And no, opening up a smaller satellite location makes no sense, since then we're still transporting major components cross-country at roughly the same cost as moving a full vehicle... except now we have to add in the costs of the satellite location AND there's no time savings.)
We've looked at nearby states, but pretty much anything west of Texas has similar issues and doesn't negate the transport overhead. For example, California to Texas is only about a 20-30% transport cost savings vs CA to NC. California to Arizona is roughly the same as CA to TX. So, there's not even anywhere in between that makes sense, and not even enough of a benefit vs where we already are to even jump to Texas (where we could duplicate our operation for roughly the same costs, or perhaps even lower).
So our options are to continue to offer what we offer with the monetary and temporal penalties of round-trip cross-country transport (~$3k + couple of weeks, usually), but keep our reasonable pricing (usually half of Tesla's costs on major services or better, even when including transport costs). Or, open up shop out that way, and charge triple... which would price us above Tesla themselves for most services.
Answer is pretty clear every time I look into it and do the math on it, and that's to stay put. I know vehicle transport isn't ideal for everyone, and makes little sense for lower cost services... but for major services it still works out to an overall savings vs Tesla service.