Tesla truly is growing up into a real car company, with all the disappointments and bureaucracy a larger organization inevitably brings. Cute, right?
The latest baby step is Tesla’s elimination of its $100 flat-rate fee for “Ranger” service, in which Tesla technicians come to swap a customer’s car for a loaner, bring it to one of 58 service centers, and return the repaired car with the grace of a concierge. As it turns out, that $100 is now a base price and “increases based on your distance from the nearest Tesla service center,” according to Tesla’s website. This “quiet change” occurred a few months ago, says Automotive News, which revealed a few Model S owners had to shell out more than $600 for Ranger service.
Tesla had promised $100 flat fees for Model S and Roadster owners when the Model S debuted in 2012. Hyundai still offers this sort of service for free for three years or 36,000 miles on its Equus flagship, but few automakers ever try it with higher-volume cars, which the Model S slowly is becoming. Earlier in the Model S life cycle, Tesla hand-delivered new cars to any address for the same destination price, no matter how far away customers were. But that also changed. Home delivery only applies when someone lives at least 160 miles away from the nearest service center.
We’ve said it before: Tesla can’t afford to keep these perks as it transitions to 500,000 annual sales, cheaper cars, and attempts to make a profit for more than one quarter. Will nationwide Supercharging at ridiculously high amperage remain free, too? Probably not. Suck down the juice while you still can.
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