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Tesla is in search of a new senior manager who will focus on eliminating the need for the automaker’s service. They will be in charge of a new program called ‘Zero Service’.

At times, Tesla’s fleet growth has greatly outpaced its service growth – resulting in significant issues and wait times for owners to get their vehicles serviced.

However, in 2021 and 2022, the automaker made large investments in its service, and combined with lower growth in vehicle deliveries in 2023, there have been fewer issues recently.

There’s always room for improvement, and CEO Elon Musk has mentioned on a few occasions that “the best service is no service.” If the cars don’t need service in the first place, the need for great service is not really required.

Since Tesla doesn’t use the traditional franchise dealership system, it operates its own service, and it has a very close loop between manufacturing and service.

While franchise dealers benefit from vehicles needing service, since Tesla owns everything, it is better off having minimal service needed for its vehicles. Electric vehicles have some significant advantages on that front – thanks to having fewer moving parts, but issues can still arise.

Now, Electrek has spotted a new job posting from Tesla for a “Sr. Manager, Zero Service” listed online a few days ago.

In the job description, Tesla says that the candidate will work to “identify and eliminate the reasons” for the cars to need service:

At Tesla we believe that the best service is no service! We are looking for a highly motivated Senior Manager to join our Service Operations organization and lead the team responsible to identify and eliminate the reasons for our cars to require service. 

Tesla continues in the job description

This role will be both strategic and tactical, and will include designing solutions and managing individual campaigns to be executed with field teams and partners. The candidate will work closely with hardware and software engineering, service engineering, quality and service programs and field teams to prioritize, launch, and track demand reduction and efficiency efforts.

The job is located in Fremont, California, where Tesla produces most of its vehicles in North America.

Tesla claims that most of its service tasks are now performed by its growing mobile service fleets, which come to customers. As of last quarter, the automaker had 1,909 mobile service vehicles.

Electrek’s Take

I am sure that this effort existed as part of Tesla’s existing quality and reliability teams in conjecture with service and manufacturing, but it now sounds like Tesla is looking to build a new dedicated team just for it.

That can’t be bad.

This is something that can be scary for franchise dealers. A big part of their revenue comes from service. Tesla has an advantage on that front since it owns all its service centers directly – though it also recently admitted that it is starting to make a lot of money from selling parts through its service division as more of its vehicles are coming off warranty.

Now, despite the program being called ‘Zero Service,’ you can’t completely eliminate service. However, I have hope that Tesla can greatly reduce the need for its vehicles to be serviced.

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Biden’s $635M good-bye, Trump’s DOT pick will investigate Tesla, and a look ahead

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Biden's 5M good-bye, Trump's DOT pick will investigate Tesla, and a look ahead

On today’s episode of Quick Charge we explore the uncertainty around the future of EV incentives, the roles different stakeholders will play in shaping that future, and our friend Stacy Noblet from energy consulting firm ICF stops by to share her take on what lies ahead.

We’ve got a couple of different articles and studies referenced in this forward-looking interview, and I’ve done my best to link to all of them below. If I missed one, let me know in the comments.

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.

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In December, EV sales were still up and incentives were still sweet – Kelley Blue Book

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In December, EV sales were still up and incentives were still sweet – Kelley Blue Book

EV sales kept up their momentum in December 2024, with incentives playing a big role, according to the latest Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book report.

December’s strong EV sales saw an average transaction price (ATP) of $55,544, which helped push the industry-wide ATP higher, according to Kelley Blue Book. The December ATP for an EV was higher year-over-year by 0.8%, slightly below the industry average, and higher month-over-month by 1.1%. Tesla ATPs were higher year-over-year by 10.5%.

Incentives for EVs remained elevated in December, although they were slightly lower month-over-month at 14.3% of ATP, down from 14.7% in November.

EV incentives were higher by an impressive 41% year-over-year and have been above 12% of ATP for six consecutive months. Strong sales incentives, which averaged more than $6,700 per sale in 2024, were one reason EV sales surpassed 1.3 million units last year, according to Cox Automotive, a new record for volume and share.

(My colleague Jameson Dow reported yesterday, “In 2024, the world sold 3.5 million more EVs than it did in the previous year … This increase is larger than the 3.2 million increase in EV sales from the previous year – meaning that EV sales aren’t just up, but that the rate of growth is itself increasing.”)

Kelley Blue Book estimated that in December, approximately 84,000 vehicles – or 5.6% of total sales – transacted at prices higher than $80,000 – the highest volume ever. KBB lumps gas cars and EVs together into this luxury vehicle category, so this is where Tesla Cybertruck is slotted.

However, Tesla bundles sales figures of Cybertruck with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi(!) into a category it calls “other models,” so we don’t know for sure exactly how many Cybertrucks Tesla sold in Q4, much less in December. However, Electrek‘s Fred Lambert estimates between 9,000 and 12,000 Cybertrucks were sold in Q4, and that’s not a stellar sales figure.

What will January bring when it comes to EV ATPs? What about tax credits? Check back in a month and I’ll fill you in.


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Tesla claims Cybertruck is ‘best-selling electric pickup’ without even confiming sales

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Tesla claims Cybertruck is 'best-selling electric pickup' without even confiming sales

Tesla is now claiming that Cybertruck was the ‘best-selling electric pickup in US’ last year despite not even reporting the number of deliveries.

There’s a lot of context needed here.

As we often highlighted, Tesla is sadly one of, if not the most, opaque automakers regarding sales reports.

Tesla doesn’t break down sales per model or even region.

For comparison, here’s Ford’s Q4 2024 sales report compared to Tesla’s:

You could argue that Tesla has fewer models than Ford, and that’s true, but Tesla’s report literally has two lines despite having six different models.

There’s no reason not to offer a complete breakdown like all other automakers other than trying to make it hard to verify the health of each vehicle program.

This has been the case with the Cybertruck. Tesla is bundling its Cybertruck deliveries with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi deliveries.

Despite this lack of disclosure, Tesla has been able to claim that the Cybertruck has become “the best-selling electric pickup truck” in the US in 2024:

It very well might be true. Ford disclosed 33,510 F-150 Lightning truck deliveries in the US in 2024 while most estimates are putting Cybertruck deliveries at around 40,000 units.

Those are global deliveries, but Tesla only delivered the Cybertruck in the US, Canada, and Mexico in 2024, and most of the deliveries are believed to be in the US.

However, there’s essential context needed here, as we highlighted in our recent ‘Tesla Cybertruck sales are disastrous‘ article.

First off, Tesla had a backlog of over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck that it has been building since 2019. This led many to believe Tesla already had years of demand baked in for the truck and that production would be the constraint.

However, based on estimates, again, because Tesla refuses to disclose the data, Cybertruck deliveries were either flat or down in Q4 versus Q3 despite Tesla introducing cheaper versions of the vehicle and ramping up production.

Again, that’s after just about 40,000 deliveries.

Furthermore, with almost 11,000 deliveries in Q4 in the US, Ford more likely than not outsold Cybertruck with the F-150 Lightning in Q4.

Electrek’s Take

Tesla is in damage control here. There’s no doubt that it is having issues selling the Cybertruck.

Inventory is full of Cybertrucks and Tesla is now discounting them and offering free lifetime Supercharging.

Tesla is great at ramping up production, and it’s clear the Cybertruck is not production-constrained anymore. It is demand-constrained despite having over 1 million reservations.

Again, those reservations were made before Tesla unveiled the production version, which happened to have less range and cost significantly more.

The upcoming cheaper single motor version should help with demand, but I have serious doubts Tesla can ramp this program up to more than 100,000 units in the US.

As a reminder, Tesla installed a production capacity of 250,000 units annually and Musk said he could see Tesla selling 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.

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