The Captain
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That parts question is one reason I donât want to get a Tesla, versus a Cadillac, Ford, VW or Honda. Those companies know how to source parts for repairs and service because they have done this for decades. Tesla still hasnât figured that out.
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I havenât seen many folks attributing the inability to get parts to âcontinuous innovation.â Most Teslaâs are Model 3 or Model Y, which have been around for a while now. Teslaâs been making/ordering the parts for those cars for years and years, without a whole lot of changes or refreshes (not too many Highlands on the road yet).
I suspect itâs more that Tesla has other priorities than making sure that thereâs an adequate stock of extra parts available to service their fleet timely. Theyâve been trying to grow like gangbusters, and so it may simply be that their focus is on growing their production and deliveries. Ensuring an adequate supply of spare parts is an unglamorous part of what a mature auto company has competencies in - that may not be the area where Tesla wants to differentiate itself. And running on a dealerless model, when dealers are an important provider of service infrastructure, may not help either.
Not sure if it will come up tomorrow, or whether it would change if it did. Remember, Tesla isnât even a car company anymore. Itâs an AI/robotics company that appears to many to be a car company. Maintaining optimal levels of replacement door panels for body repairs is the kind of stuff that a boring old car company worries about, not an AI/robotics company.
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It doesnât take a genius to know that customers need parts for their cars.
Apparently, literally.
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More likely itâs not an area where Tesla has a competency, at least now. As you point out the âno dealerâ model (I would say âanti-dealerâ, at least in the rhetoric and therefore perhaps in the conference rooms). If this were a failure of a couple of stories or some griping on the internet it would be one thing. This is Hertz, a buyer of 100,000 vehicles at a time when youâre used to selling ones and maybe twos, Hertz who should be your most important customer, demoing your product for millions of people, Hertz who announced they were going to convert fully-half their fleet in short order âŚ
.,âŚand they canât get parts?
(I suspect there is more here, like the pushback they got from customers who didnât want to rent an EV but were forced into it because Hertz overbooked - and so on. But the animus must be quite real, given that the two companies should be terrific partners, and (obviously) thatâs not happening.)
1 Like
A reply by Fool ibuildthings with experience in partsâŚ
The Captain
1 Like
But is Tesla doing that? Their thing has been that they refresh/fix their cars through OTA software updates, not tweaking the physical vehicles to any great extent. Indeed, my understanding is that prior to the Highland refresh, their two large-volume models (3 and Y) have been largely unchanged, in terms of physical design - which is what led to some of the calls that the 3 needed an update. Plus, itâs not like Hertzâ fleet was purchased an especially long time ago, either - those cars would have been two years old or so.
I think Goofyâs probably more correct on this. Itâs hard to get parts because Tesla hasnât done whatâs necessary to make parts easy to get.
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Agreed. Think about collision repair â Tesla isnât changing the quarter panels and bumpers on their cars all that frequently.
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DB2
My understanding those repairs are not related to the EV nature of the car, but everything else. Such as collision damage, torn seats, etc. And I wonder if those problems exist with an EV from an established brand (Ford, VW, etc), who understands how to run a real car business with things like a readily available supply of spare parts?
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Iâd guess that the reason he was fired (âstepping downâ, âspending more time with familyâ, etc) is because he went whole hog into a new line of cars instead of testing the concept out first. Buy a few 1000, put them in a region and wait a year to see how they do. Then increase as necessary if it is profitable. I think he was blinded by âheadline valueâ, thatâs why he trumpeted that HUGE number of 100,000 repeatedly (it never reached 100,000, but the headlines all shouted it).
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and, at the time, Hertz was in the news for âbadâ ⌠Hertz stock price was dropping, everything looked like Hertz was toilet water.
Hertz NEEDED a âwhite knightâ⌠and grabbed on to Tesla. It worked for⌠6 months? a year?
ralph
1 Like