Tesla repairs its own vehicles at its various Service Centers and also relies on mobile repair technicians who will come to your home or place of business. However, this doesn't mean you can't get your Tesla repaired elsewhere. How about a local General Motors dealership?

We do know many Tesla owners who don't live near a Tesla Service Center, and they've taken their cars to a local shop or dealership. To be clear, while Tesla handles its own repairs, it doesn't handle most collision repairs, though it's starting to take on more. Tesla's collision repairs are typically handled by a Tesla-certified collision shop.

According to a recent report published by Teslarati, General Motors is now servicing Tesla's vehicles at its dealerships, and the automaker actually sees it as a growing business. The new business for the Big Three automaker may not only help Tesla owners by providing more convenient repair options, but also get GM's dealers ready for a future of repairing EVs. During GM's recent Investor Day 2022, President Mark Reuss shared via Teslarati:

“That’s a growing business for us. I gotta say it’s a new business."

While some folks may be thinking that any legacy dealership could be repairing Tesla's EVs, and that GM's entry into this business is no big deal, a closer look suggests otherwise. GM claimed that it has already repaired some 11,000 Tesla cars and SUVs to date.

The automaker has said many times in the past that most people in the US live within 10 miles of a GM dealership. For this reason, it makes sense that Tesla owners may check in and see if they can get their cars serviced. Moreover, there are many GM fans who own Tesla vehicles.

While this is likely true of many other brands, it has been especially common over the years to learn that Chevrolet Volt owners graduated to a Tesla EV. Moreover, we are aware of multiple people in the Detroit area who own either a Chevrolet Volt or Bolt EV, along with a Tesla Model 3 or Model Y. We don't have access to any specific numbers here, but it is safe to say that there are GM fans who also own Teslas, and there are certainly Tesla owners who live near GM dealerships.

As Tesla grows exponentially and works to keep up with its service centers and other facets of its business, GM's dealerships can likely pick up some of the slack while benefitting in a number of ways.

Mark Reuss said that GM dealerships repaired 11,180 Tesla vehicles since 2021. It does not matter what they have fixed; the mere fact that Tesla owners preferred to ask General Motors for help is enough to understand how bustling Tesla Service Centers are. If you are wondering when Tesla will sell a cheaper EV than the Model 3, ask no further - that will only happen when Tesla fixes its Service Centers.


Before the company presented the Model 3, Tesla Service Centers were celebrated for the high level of attention and care they provided to customers. There are several stories of how well they took care of issues, which is probably the reason for Tesla vehicles to be taken for luxury cars when there is nothing premium about them. In those days, Tesla Service Centers were considered better than Lexus.

Everything changed with Tesla’s cheapest EV. The problem was not related solely to the higher volume, even if this is a major factor. It was mostly the EV maker’s lousy quality control that crippled Tesla Service Centers.

According to Troy Teslike, 43% of all Teslas had to visit a service center in the first month of ownership in 2018. That only got worse with time: 46% in 2019, 60% in 2020 and 2021, and 69% in 2022 (until July). It could be even worse: considering how crowded Tesla Service Centers are, some vehicles must have had to wait more than 30 days to fix issues they already presented at delivery.

Tesla owners have inspection guides to make sure they check for the most frequent defects in new vehicles: misaligned panels, chipped paint, dents, trim defects and damages, broken clips, and foggy taillights and headlights are just some examples from the top of my head. Apart from these things, there are other issues that only emerge after driving the vehicles for a bit of time.

Dana Brems got stuck in the middle of a freeway in California with her brand-new Tesla Model 3. After giving her a ridiculous diagnostic (the car would have run out of juice, even showing 139 miles of range), Tesla discovered that the EV would have to replace its rear drive unit because of a defective inverter. Tesla even made a recall in China involving 127,785 units of the Model 3 on April 7. However, it did do anything in the U.S.

If the company offers this level of service with its current four-model lineup, just try to imagine what will happen when it releases a cheaper EV than the Model 3. Without fixing quality control, they would pack Tesla Service Centers just with people willing to accept deliveries of defective cars. Supposing that gets solved, the simple volume increase that a more affordable vehicle represents would have the same effect, even if not immediately.

For Tesla to fix its servicing network, it will have to expand the number of Tesla Service Centers with massive investments. That should not be difficult when it allegedly gets eight times more profits per car than Toyota. As I discussed in a previous article, that is surprising if it is true. After all, Tesla pays no dividends to its shareholders and keeps constant operating expenses despite opening two factories that Elon Musk called “money furnaces.”

The company also keeps opening more Supercharging stations, and the operating costs do not get higher, which is practically a miracle. With the EV maker’s accounting strategies, opening more Tesla Service Centers will probably have no effect on operating expenses either. And they are desperately needed – not for any new affordable car, but for the EVs that Tesla already sells, as GM demonstrated.

With its two new factories, Tesla could easily develop a more affordable vehicle. One of these new plants could be dedicated to this new EV. If Tesla does not do it, that’s because of everything else it has to fix before it is able to service these cars. After all, it should have already learned the lesson the Model 3 production delivered. On second thought, the Model Y shows it didn’t. GM servicing 11,180 Tesla cars reinforces that.

The rout in Tesla shares is accelerating as a recall and signs of China’s return to Covid Zero curbs adds to a litany of investor concerns, with Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk focused on turning around Twitter Inc.

The electric-vehicle maker’s stock dropped as much as 6.5% to $168.52 in New York on Monday, on pace to close at the lowest since November 2020. Trader anxiety was higher after a city near Beijing returned to lockdowns, putting both production and sales at risk. Tesla also initiated a recall of more than 300,000 cars due to faulty taillights.



Tesla’s shares have lost nearly half of their value in less than two months as supply-chain snarls mount, raw-material costs soar and potential buyers feel the squeeze of stubborn inflation and rising interest rates.

On top of that, Musk has been preoccupied by his newly acquired social-media platform, leaving some investors to worry that Tesla’s strategy may fall to the wayside.

“Weakening macro data in China is leading to concerns on Tesla, who has already lowered price once to stimulate demand and has a heavy export output in the first half of fourth quarter,” Cowen analyst Jeffrey Osborne wrote in a Friday note.

The analyst added that hedge funds seem to be shifting to a negative bias on the stock due to risk there’s been “a loss of focus” on Tesla since Musk acquired Twitter.

The company’s recent stock decline marks a major retracement of several milestones reached during its meteoric rise in 2020 and 2021.

Tesla was supplanted as the fifth-most valuable company on the S&P 500 Index by old-economy stalwart Berkshire Hathaway Inc. earlier this month.

The car company, which lost its trillion-dollar-valuation status in late April, only needs its shares to tumble another 6.5% from current levels for the valuation to drop below $500 billion.

Elon Musk had to go to court to win the right to be called a Tesla founder. However, that only happened when Martin Eberhard agreed to settle a lawsuit against the Tesla CEO. Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning are the ones who founded Tesla in 2003 after the former wanted to buy a sports car that would not throw more carbon into the atmosphere. As there was no one for sale, he decided to build one.
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Whenever someone brings up that story, Musk has something to add. The latest example was when Jake Broe shared a picture of Tarpenning and Eberhard to say this:

“It’s always worth reminding Musk’s fan boys (sic) that these are the brilliant men who founded Tesla. Elon was just a series-A investor who bought in, then sabotaged the company enough until these men were pushed out, then he spent the next ten years telling everyone he founded Tesla.”

A Tesla investor tried to refute that and tagged Musk, who replied that “Eberhard was wealthy and could have risked his money, but was unwilling to do so.” He also said he was “head of product and led the design of the original Roadster.” The Tesla CEO often claims to be an engineer without an engineering degree, but this must be the first time he affirms to be a designer. He would have even won a design prize for that. Franz von Holzhausen, beware!

Business Insider talked to Eberhard to learn what he thought about what Musk tweeted, and he said that not one sentence in Musk’s tweet is true. In other words, Musk was neither head of product nor designer. The Tesla founder may also have invested quite a chunk of his money in the company before he needed additional investments.

Eberhard told Business Insider Musk “continues to spew lies” about him 15 years after he left Tesla. In his words, that “says more about Musk than anything else." We have no idea what the deal he made with Musk in 2009 involved. Anyway, it must have forgotten to include that bashing could be a breach. Not that it would be effective, but it could be a deterrent for these public spats.