A few days ago, according to relevant media reports, according to Tesla's proposal to the Kansas State Planning Commission, the company will open the world's first car repair shop in Kansas.
Tesla will build the auto repair shop on a local 3-acre vacant lot that will house 21 service areas, two paint booths, two open workshops and two cleaning workshops.
As you may know, Tesla has been maintaining a direct operation model, especially in China, there is no "local customs" to adopt the 4S model, but also set up direct sheet metal spray centers in several key areas. Now, Tesla will start to do direct auto repair stores, which is also a strong weather vane.
01
Tesla adheres to the direct sales and after-sales model
Tesla insists on taking the direct operation model because Tesla believes that new energy vehicles can indeed reduce many "intermediate links" compared with fuel vehicles.
Tesla officials have said that consumers currently need to buy a traditional internal combustion engine gasoline car, due to the existence of the main engine factory -4S model, they not only have to query the local dealer, but also negotiate with the sales in the 4S store; if it is a loan to buy a car, they also need to compare the financial schemes in detail, and finally decide which store to buy a car. As a result, the whole process is quite tedious.
If consumers buy Tesla's electric vehicles, they only need to browse the information officially, and then go to the offline store to test drive the experience, and finally they can buy a car to settle, of course, they can also go to the official website to place an order after the test drive. Comparing the sales steps of fuel vehicles, many unnecessary links have been simplified.
In addition to the new car sales link, Tesla also adopts a direct operation model after the sale. It is for this reason that the prices of repair items and accessories are transparent and uniform across the country. At present, there are 50+ cities and 110+ service centers in the country, which basically cover mainstream areas.
Last year, Tesla officials also announced the price list of common maintenance items for different models in its direct stores, and from the price point of view, most of the maintenance projects are relatively cheap in general.
According to a horizontal price comparison detail issued by an insurance company, the after-sales price of BBBAL (Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Lexus) is basically half of their price, and the difference is very obvious!
Tesla to do direct operation, in fact, is now a microcosm of the domestic new energy vehicle market, like Weilai, Weima these head enterprises have long begun to do price transparency, unification, transparent price system will change some of the current status quo of the industry.
In addition to basic maintenance, Tesla is also doing direct operations on the important project of sheet metal spraying. At the beginning of January this year, Tesla opened its first direct-operated sheet metal spray center in South China, and Tesla has previously established direct sheet metal spray centers in several key cities across the country.
02
Electric vehicle maintenance is not enough to rely on "online"
Many new energy vehicle owners may know that there are currently some faults that can be directly solved through remote terminals, and many car companies, including Tesla, have such services to provide. However, new energy vehicles are still cars after all, and the terminal repair and upgrading of the original factory alone cannot cover the maintenance projects of some other traditional components.
For example, at the end of last year, Tesla officially announced that it would expand its "mobile repair" team to improve customer service needs in many ways. According to relevant data, despite the impact of the epidemic last year, Tesla's physical service center increased by 35%, while the growth of the mobile service fleet was even more staggering, reaching 40%.
Tesla says its mobile services team can handle most inspection and repair services on the spot. Although electric vehicles require far less after-sales service than their counterparts in traditional fuel vehicles, they still need service and maintenance from time to time.
Tesla, which adopts a direct sales model, has created a new way in the field of after-sales maintenance - the mobile service department, and the owner can use the two-dimensional code to make a mobile service reservation.
In this way, the owner does not have to drive to the service center in person, and can solve the maintenance problem of some vehicles on the spot. Tesla officials have said: "According to historical order records, 80% of the repair work can be solved without going to the service center." ”
According to reports, Tesla's mobile services can be simple repairs and maintenance, such as replacing parts, 12-volt batteries or tires, which can reduce the owner's trip to the Tesla service center, while reducing the congestion of Tesla's own service center, saving the delivery time of some other large-scale maintenance projects.
Service centers, on the other hand, tend to solve more complex problems, such as three-electric repairs, system upgrades, remote diagnostics, charging, and new car delivery. Although Tesla's mobile services team is excellent and widely appreciated, they can't solve every problem, especially the repair of some key three-power parts.
This can become a pain point for today's Tesla owners, who share on social media that sometimes it can take them hours to get to the nearest service center, which can be bad for Tesla in the long run.
After all, the company's car production scale was prohibitive to us a few years ago. But in the next year or two, Tesla can already produce and deliver more than 1 million cars a year.
At that time, the customer's repair and maintenance needs may be even greater, and some of them may require more maintenance and repairs. Obviously, this is their original intention to expand their "mobile services" team and set up direct auto repair stores.