General Motors has a “new business”---servicing Tesla electric vehicles at its dealerships.
Since 2021, GM claimed, its dealers have fixed more than 11,000 Tesla EVs across the nation. The business is a growing one, GM said, at a time when Tesla is still fine-tuning its own service model.
During the Detroit carmaker’s Investor Day on Nov. 17 in New York City, General Motors revealed a new source of income: fixing Teslas.
GM President Mark Reuss dropped that bombshell while talking to investors and analysts. “That’s a growing business for us,” he said before adding, “I gotta say it’s a new business.”
Servicing Tesla vehicles is unexpected but it’s easy to see the benefit for both sides. General Motors gets a stream of revenue it wasn’t planning on, while customers are not having to wait on what can be lengthy turnaround times for service through Tesla itself.
As Barrons rightly pointed out, Tesla doesn’t have a network of dealers. While it does have its own service centers, they aren’t as numerous as GM dealers across the nation. That, in part, may be one reason many Tesla customers have reported long wait times for service appointments.
It’s worth noting Reuss didn’t go into detail about exactly what services GM dealers are performing on Tesla vehicles. CarScoops reached out to GM for more information.
It is also unknown how many vehicles are no longer under warranty with Tesla. In addition, many deeper functions are things only Tesla service centers can affect. But that doesn’t mean this revenue stream isn’t a big win for both sides.
Having the ability to get service completed in a single day impacts customer satisfaction in a large way. Surely, that’s why Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a large push towards improving the service experience for customers earlier this year.
Now, with his attention split even further by Twitter, it’ll be interesting to track how much Tesla’s service improves in 2023. Either way, the gap between the two automakers might be shrinking.
Abby Andrews