Tesla wants to ‘revolutionize’ service with bigger centers and more specialization

Tesla is launching an effort to ‘revolutionize’ service and aiming to be 10 times better than the competition. CEO Elon Musk elaborates on the effort during a company-wide meeting.

Earlier this week, we reported on Musk’s announcement that Tesla is working on service in North America and how Telsa is aiming to make the majority of appointments same-day repairs. As we noted, it is much needed since Tesla’s customer fleet is growing at a much faster pace than its service infrastructure. However, Musk didn’t elaborate on how Tesla plans to achieve that.

During a company-wide meeting last night, Musk elaborated after being asked by an employee:

I think we still have a relatively conventional approach to servicing – although we kind of use the vehicle app. So we definitely have better servicing than the rest of the industry, but I really want Tesla to look at how we can revolutionize service and I don’t know, make it 10 times better than the rest of the industry.

The CEO said that the goal to get to two-third thirds of appointments being same-day repairs is part of that mission. He said that Tesla looked at the data of all the different repairs, and he believes that most of them can be done on the same day as long as parts are available at the service centers.

Part availability has been a weakness for Tesla’s service, but Musk said that better part inventory at the service centers is part of the plan.

Musk elaborated on other initiatives to improve service during the meeting:

We definitely want to increase the number of people who actually repair cars. When looking at the total head count at a service center, the ratio of people fixing cars to everyone else doesn’t make a ton of sense. I think there should be a higher percentage of people fixing cars.

The CEO also added that Tesla is moving to a model where the service centers are going to be bigger with more “specialization.” He explained:

Kind of like we have in the factory, we are going to have say one service bay for 12-volt battery changes, another bay for fixing the computer, another one is drivetrain replacement – like more specialize like at the factory.”

While the previous announcement was more about North American service, Musk added during the meeting that the changes are eventually going global.