Elon Musk to address Tesla shutting down its service loaner program

Tesla started shutting down its service loaner program earlier this year, and apparently, Elon Musk didn’t know about it. He says he is going to address the issue.

When a Tesla owner would need to leave their car at a service center, the automaker would provide another Model S or Model X as a service loaner for the owner to use until their car is ready.

In 2017, CEO Elon Musk even said that Tesla was updating its loaner fleet with fully loaded Model S and X P100Ds. That way, owners would always get the same or an even better experience while their own car is in service.

However, things have changed over the last two years.

Tesla gradually stopped offering their own cars as loaner service vehicles. Instead, Tesla would refer owners to rental car companies or more recently, Tesla would give Uber credits to owners.

Last night, Musk was asked about the situation, and he said that he is going to “address” it (via Twitter):

This isn’t correct. Will address.

It’s unclear what he plans to do exactly to address it, but Musk has been focusing on improving service lately.

Tesla has made several statements about expanding service after Musk admitted a “foolish oversight” of Tesla’s service coverage and plans to open more service centers around the world.

The automaker recently opened more than 30 new service centers around the world.

Electrek’s Take

I am not sure what he means by “this isn’t correct,” because Tesla has definitely been shutting down its service loaner program.

Some have still been offered loaner vehicles, but they have switched to Uber credits for the most part.

I took it as him meaning that Tesla shouldn’t be doing that and he is going to address the situation — meaning reverse it, which would mean that he wasn’t aware of it? That would be strange, since it has been going on for a while.

At first, I thought it was a cyclical problem, as Tesla was selling its inventory every quarter, including service vehicles, but it has now become clear that it was a new policy.