Owners of Tesla electric cars in Australia and New Zealand will now be able to schedule service appointments through the Tesla website, the EV maker announced yesterday.
While electric cars have greatly reduced maintenance requirements compared to internal combustion engine vehicles, due to a significantly smaller number of moving parts, they do still need a little love and care from time to time.
Over-the-air software updates, the ability to diagnose many issues remotely, and a slew of smart alerts already aim to keep Tesla cars out of service centres as much as possible.
But while the EV maker states on its website that 80 per cent of repairs can be done either remotely or by its mobile service team (which it has tripled in 2019, increasing its coverage six-fold), the odd visit to a Tesla service centre is still sometimes unavoidable.
This is just as well – there are currently only four Tesla service centres in Australia, and all of those on the eastern seaboard, while the only NZ service centre is in Auckland.
But with Tesla CEO Elon Musk promising in October 2018 that the EV maker will aim to cover all geographic regions globally by its service centres by the end of 2019, here’s hoping that stretches to other major centres in Australia and New Zealand.
“As we continue to enhance the Tesla ownership experience, Tesla has officially launched self-schedule service in Australia and New Zealand,” a spokesperson for the EV maker said in an email.
“Tesla owners are now able to self-schedule a service appointment through their Tesla Account via Tesla.com without having to call or email by simply logging in and selecting their preferred date and location.
“The introduction of self-schedule service is part of our ongoing commitment to providing the highest quality of service to our growing family of Tesla owners.”
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.