LONDON, May 20 (Reuters) - Tesla is working to appease some European leasing companies after the automaker’s repeated retail price cuts tanked their fleets’ value and its slow service and expensive repairs alienated their corporate customers.
The efforts include unofficial discounts on purchases of new cars if they are in stock and efforts to address widespread service, repair and ordering complaints after years in which fleet managers and leasing firms say Tesla has ignored those problems, according to Reuters interviews with nine executives from major leasing and rental-car firms, along with about a dozen corporate fleet managers.
The reason their repair service is expensive and slow is because it is mobile.
We are used to bringing our cars to the repair shop when they need service.
With Tesla the repair shop comes to you and that is much more expensive and time consuming to do.
They also refuse to replace individual battery cells which may need service, and they insist you buy an entirely new battery altogether.
I feel like I usually hear this in the context of bodywork or collision repair, which is just as likely as any other car to be needed. Like the lead time on replacement body panels is months long because no dealers so sucks if you get in a wreck. That may have changed since however many years ago though.
The battery is typically covered under the warranty or lease agreement, in some manner, so the cost usually isn’t a problem for most people. But, as you said, the parts availability can be a massive issue.
True yeah. Downtime has gotta be especially problematic for fleet usage.
Their mobile service numbers are a tiny fraction of their service appointments. Mobile service isn’t why it’s slow and expensive, Elon is.