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Tesla’s in-house body repair shop restores damaged Model 3 in 25 hours

[Credit: Like Tesla/YouTube]

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Back in Tesla’s 2018 Annual Shareholder Meeting, Elon Musk stated that the company is opening in-house body shops to reduce the time it takes for owners to get their cars repaired. The first nine of these in-house body shops were announced in Tesla’s official website earlier this month, and so far, reports of the service they provide have been very positive.

Just last week, u/ekobres, a Model 3 owner and member of the r/TeslaMotors subreddit, shared his experience with Tesla’s in-house repair shop in Marietta, Georgia, which reportedly fixed a panel alignment issue in one day. According to the Model 3 owner, Tesla picked up the car, loaned him a vehicle, and delivered it back fully fixed and cleaned within nine hours. While this turnaround time was impressive, the work done in u/ekobres’ Model 3 was rather minor. Thus, it remained to be seen how fast Tesla’s in-house repair shops could fix a vehicle with more significant damages.

One such vehicle was sent to the same in-house body repair shop in Marietta, GA recently. The Model 3 was owned by the hosts of YouTube’s Like Tesla channel, who noted that their vehicle was damaged after a car backed into it. The electric car was still drivable after the accident, but a portion of its front bumper was hanging out, and its left headlight was cracked from the impact. Kim, the YouTube channel’s host, even aired her concern as to when they would get their Model 3 back, considering Tesla’s notorious wait times even for otherwise simple repairs.

Fortunately for the Model 3 owners, they were in the vicinity of Tesla’s in-house body shop in Marietta. Within an hour of the accident, the shop had been contacted, and necessary information such as the claim number and the electric car’s VIN were taken. The shop also started coordinating with the responsible party’s insurance provider. The next day, Tesla Service came by, dropped off a Model X loaner, and took the damaged Model 3 to be repaired.

Forty-five minutes after that, Tesla notified the Model 3 owners that their car had arrived at the shop, and around four hours later, images of the vehicle being worked on were sent over. Not long after, the in-house body shop sent another message informing the Model 3 owners that their car had been fully repaired, complete with a new bumper, front fender, headlight, and wheel. It was just 25 hours after the accident.

The rapid turnaround time of the Model 3’s repair stands as yet another example of Tesla’s continued attempts at improving its service to its growing customer base. This was highlighted in one of Elon Musk’s tweets last month, when he noted that Tesla is aiming to improve its in-house repair shops to such a level that same-day repairs become possible.

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If these recent accounts are any indication, it appears that Tesla’s ramp of its in-house repair shops is moving alongside the company’s ramp for Model 3 production. While Tesla’s body shops are only addressing minor repairs for now (major damages are still referred to the company’s network of certified, third-party repair shops), the service they provide undoubtedly improves the ownership experience. Once Tesla’s in-house shops are fully ramped, the company might finally be able to shake off its image of providing great cars that are beautiful and powerful, but are a pain to get repaired. 

Watch Like Tesla‘s Model 3 repair experience with an in-house body shop in the video below.

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Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet

Elon Musk hinted a Tesla-SpaceX merger could be coming, and Wall Street is taking notice.

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Elon Musk gave his clearest signal yet that Tesla and SpaceX could eventually combine, telling the All-In Summit in Los Angeles that the two companies’ deepening collaboration makes the question worth asking. Sawyer Merritt first surfaced the highlight on X Tuesday.

Asked directly why Tesla and SpaceX remain separate given how closely they already work together, Musk told hosts at the summit: “Great question there. With all this collaboration, on so many levels, who can imagine what action one might take when there’s so much close collaboration in so many areas.” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who joined Musk on stage, added that SpaceX personnel have already moved into xAI to fill leadership and engineering gaps, saying the businesses are integrating “faster than I thought,” though “not fully integrated yet,”

The comments landed on top of merger speculation that has been building on Wall Street for months. JPMorgan has called a tie-up “strategically coherent on paper,” pointing to overlapping ambitions in AI, robotics, energy, transportation and space. Jefferies went further, estimating Musk could retain roughly 55.3 percent voting control in a deal structured without a premium, a scenario that would still leave room for Tesla shareholders to come out ahead. On Kalshi, traders now put the odds of a merger before 2028 at 66 percent.

Tesla’s stake in SpaceX, still under one percent, traces back to its earlier investment in xAI, which converted to SpaceX equity after SpaceX absorbed the AI company. The two are also jointly building Terafab, a chip facility in Austin meant to serve both Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s satellite ambitions. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has stood by a 2027 merger timeline for months, and Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest recently floated a similar case, an idea Musk pushed back on directly at the time.

Another Tesla SpaceX merger prediction by ARK Invest has Elon Musk talking

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The timing adds another layer. Tesla has scheduled an October 1 unveiling for its next generation Roadster at a venue near SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas test site, using the phrase “Go for launch” in its promotional material. Both stocks dipped roughly 2 percent Monday before recovering slightly in premarket trading Tuesday, with SpaceX shares up about 0.4 percent and Tesla essentially flat.

Musk stopped short of confirming anything is in motion. But unlike his past denials of a corporate restructuring, this response didn’t rule one out, and it came with Shotwell sitting next to him describing an integration that’s already underway.

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Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by Elon Musk

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tesla roadster
Credit: Petersen Auto Museum

The Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by the company’s CEO Elon Musk, who has been a big reason the product has such high expectations due to delayed timelines and a constant need to make it even more insane than before.

Tesla announced on September 12 that it would officially unveil the Roadster in Waco, Texas, on October 1, ending years of patience for fans and reservation holders who have waited for the all-electric supercar to enter production since 2017.

Musk has said that this event will be well worth the wait on several occasions, and last year on the Joe Rogan Experience, he said that there should be a closing chapter to supercars- the end of cars that aren’t focused on safety.

He said:

“Whether it’s good or bad, it will be unforgettable. My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars. I think if Peter wants a flying car, he should be able to buy one. I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. This is some crazy technology in this car. Let’s just put it this way: if you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that.”

Musk’s teases have continued, and now that the event is roughly two weeks away, it seems like Roadster is finally going to show up and blow some minds:

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Tesla has definitely dragged out the development of the Roadster, but there is a good reason for it.

Tesla has been working on many other projects, most notably self-driving efforts to increase passenger safety, and those simply took priority over the Roadster, a low-volume, high-performance sports car that has a lightning-fast acceleration rate of 0-60 MPH in just 1.1 seconds, could potentially fly, and contributes very little to the company’s mission.

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However, many people have the Roadster on pre-order through the referral program or with their own money, and it is time that Tesla delivers on that.

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Elon Musk’s Boring Company has big plans for Las Vegas by year’s end

Elon Musk’s Boring Company says Vegas Loop stations will double by year end once again.

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the boring company's vegas loop entrance

The Boring Company says the Vegas Loop’s station count will double by the end of the year, tying the target to a hiring push for drivers and operations managers in Las Vegas. “Vegas Loop is getting bigger – the station count will double by end of year!” the company wrote in a post on X, attaching listings for a Loop driver and a senior Loop operations manager.

The number checks out against what’s already public, with the Vegas Loop currently running 14 operational stations, while the Boring Company’s own project page lists 28 as the target for the end of 2026.

Much of that growth is tied to tunnels that are already built and waiting on an opening date. A roughly two-mile dual tunnel system under Paradise Road, connecting Westgate to a planned station at 4744 Paradise Road, is expected to open in stages over the coming weeks, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority chief executive Steve Hill told the Review-Journal last week. New stations at 4744 Paradise, Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, and the former Gordon Biersch site would come online with it, several of them built to speed up rides to Harry Reid International Airport ahead of Formula 1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Clark County entitled Vegas Loop for 123 stations after approving 19 more in August, as Teslarati reported at the time. Entitlement and construction move at different speeds on this project, so county approval alone does not guarantee a station opens on any particular schedule.

Clark County approved 18 additional stations back in 2023, part of a plan that pushed the system’s target to 69 stations across 65 miles, doubling the network on paper for the first time. The target kept climbing after that, to roughly 93 stations by the end of that year and 104 by last year, before August’s vote pushed it to 123. This week’s announcement is the first time that doubling language has been attached to stations actually running rather than stations merely approved on a county map.

Ridership gives some sense of what a denser network could carry. Boring Company executive Mike Baier said in July that the Vegas Loop already moves around 40,000 passengers on busy convention days, a total that tops most light rail systems in the country despite the system running on a fraction of its planned tunnel mileage. Company leadership has projected ridership could triple or quadruple once the airport connector tunnels fully open.

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Boring Company did not say which stations beyond those already under construction would open by year end, or whether the hiring push points to a fleet expansion alongside the new stops.

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