Starting sometime next week, Tesla EV owners will be able to schedule services directly from the app in just a couple of minutes and with a few taps on your smartphone screen, according to a tweet from Musk.
Tesla phone app release next week will enable service scheduling in 2 mins with a few taps. No more need to call!— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2018
Tesla is still rolling out its mobile service, where a Tesla Ranger will come and fix your car so you don’t have to take it into the shop. About 30% of the company’s service workload is already being handled by its mobile division, and the new app feature falls in line with Tesla’s promise to prioritize service as part of its growth plans.
Norway was a good lesson for Tesla, apparently. Service woes in the Scandinavian nation rocked Musk’s boat earlier this year, and that is clearly happening now with the change to the app and Musk promising to open several service centers in 2019.
Through 2018, Tesla has been struggling with Model 3 production and deliveries, and a self-admitted case of “foolish oversight” was Musk’s reason for falling down on the parts and service portion of the Tesla EV experience. 2019 won’t see any pressure alleviated on the production and deliveries front, but we hope to see a better balance between sales and after-sales service during the year ahead.
For now, we’ll keep our eye out for the software update that lets you schedule a Tesla service through the Tesla app on your smartphone. Expect it to drop sometime next week, subject to unforeseen delays, of course. It isn’t unknown for Tesla to hastily release an update and not have it work properly, as we saw in the case of Autopilot and AEB being disabled in a recent Model 3 software update. On the bright side, this is a non-critical update but, then again, with Tesla it’s always better to wait and watch.
