After it was revealed that Tesla owners were experiencing excessive wait times at body shops after being in accidents, Tesla started working on several initiatives to address the issue, including opening up its own ‘Tesla body shops’.
CEO Elon Musk now says that Tesla is about to open the first of those shops and that they could even potentially offer same day repairs.
Musk made the comment during Tesla’s 2018 shareholder meeting yesterday.
He said that the Tesla should open its first stores in the top ten metro areas by the end of the month.
The CEO expects that it will result in a drastic reduction in cost and time of repair, which has been a problem with Tesla’s current third-party repair shop system.
Some Tesla owners had been complaining about repair time after accidents for a long time, but it came back to the forefront of Tesla news last year.
It can sometimes take months for repairs to be completed.
Tesla placed the fault on its third-party body shops and the body shops are saying that it’s Tesla’s fault because of delays of parts.
Last year, Tesla moved some of its training programs online and it looked to certify more equipment in order to offer more options to shops. The automaker said it was ‘adding 300 body shops to its network‘.
Despite those initiatives, Tesla owners are still reporting some long wait times with third-party body shops after body damages.
Now, Tesla is trying to address the issue with its own body shops, which will also be annexed to Tesla’s existing service centers, and they will pre-stock some parts in order to achieve much faster repair time.
Electrek’s Take
It’s one of Tesla’s biggest problems and like with most of Tesla’s issues, the automaker’s solution is to go in-house.
I can’t wait to see how it will impact wait times, but if they are indeed stockpiling some of the most popular parts, it should certainly have a major impact.
Let us know if you start seeing Tesla Body Shops in your region.
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