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Tesla’s ‘F1’ Service strategy eliminates same-day loaner vehicles, Uber credits

Credit: Tesla

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Update 2:59 pm: Paragraph 4 updated to reflect accuracy. Tesla is reserving available loaners for multi-day visits.

Tesla’s focus on quick and efficient service visits with inspiration from Formula 1 pit crews is bringing closure to the company’s offering of loaner vehicles and Uber credits for same-day fixes.

Tesla’s Service Centers are strategically placed across the country and allow owners to receive repairs from technicians trained by the company. However, Tesla’s Service experience has not been A+ in recent years, and while the company has worked to expand the number of locations, customers still have complaints.

In an effort to expedite the entire Service experience as a whole, CEO Elon Musk has talked about adopting F1-style pit strategies in Service Centers that will have nearly all issues fixed within the same day. Of course, this requires some reasonability from customers, who have held the company to a high standard for many years. While Musk has talked about this since 2017, the CEO Tweeted about the strategy once again in late July.

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Despite the relatively positive ownership experience that many owners report, a common issue nearly across the board in Service. Tesla is making more changes to its Service Department by going all-in with same-day service. The company is beginning to restrict provided transportation for some owners, especially those whose vehicles can be fixed in a single day, even if it isn’t necessarily a fast repair.

A reader of Teslarati reached out late last week to inform us that Tesla technicians stated they would not be able to provide transportation in any way to the customer. The repairs were expected to be completed in the same day:

“As a reminder, we will not be able to offer any alternate transportation for the duration of your service appointment, as we aim to have all service completed by 5 pm.”

Ultimately, a loaner was provided to this customer after they made several phone calls and insisted the company provide a form of transportation to get them to and from work from the Service Center.

It seems fair that they received a loaner, considering the policy is new and unannounced. However, the rep also stated to the customer that Tesla would be eliminating loaners and Uber credits due to a “universal policy” that would be company-wide starting this month.

The customer was told by a Service representative that Uber credits will no longer be offered under any circumstance. This has been an issue with owners as far back as May 2022.

Tesla does not have an active press department, but Teslarati did send an email to its PR department. It did not immediately respond.

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Tesla’s possible axing of the Loaner Program has not yet been confirmed by the company. In 2019, rumors of the Loaner Program coming to a halt were shot down by Musk, and they turned out to be true. However, with the company’s focus on fast and efficient service, it would not be out of the question to save a few loaner vehicles at each Service location, with a strict policy of them only being used for multi-day appointments.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027

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Credit: Grok Imagine

Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”

SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.

It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.

Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.

Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:

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There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.

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Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk reminds everyone about Roadster’s true meaning

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Elon Musk addresses the crowd next to the new Tesla Roadster, which Tesla offers in Performance, Thrust and Rocket versions. (Image: Tesla/X)
Elon Musk addresses the crowd next to the new Tesla Roadster, which Tesla offers in Performance, Thrust and Rocket versions. (Image: Tesla/X)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Sunday to remind everyone that the Roadster’s true meaning is not about company growth or adding dollars to shareholders’ pockets. Sometimes, you just do things because you can.

Following the Roadster’s epic unveiling event last Thursday, skeptics and critics of the company or the project itself came out to say that the vehicle is a pointless project because it is not geared toward growing the company, delivering supreme margins for profitability, nor does it contribute to the big picture of Artificial/Super Intelligence.

But that’s just the thing: Roadster is not meant to be some shareholder dream; it’s meant to be a vehicle that people buy just because it is something awesome, unique, and the first of its kind.

Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds

Musk had to remind those who are skeptical about the Roadster’s importance to the company mission that while it is not a major contributor to Tesla’s long-term goals, it is something that is being built just because it can be:

“Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value. The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power, and mass to space. And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow. But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.”

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Musk has said on many occasions that Optimus would be the project that would make up the vast majority of Tesla’s value in the coming years.

Robotics will be a major focus of Tesla over the coming years, especially as Musk believes Optimus will enable work to be optional for humans and will enable what he calls “High Universal Income.”

Cybercab will be a passive income opportunity for owners, Musk and Tesla have said for a very long time, as a fleet of self-driving vehicles will operate within a ride-hailing Robotaxi service that won’t require a human driver to be present.

Tesla investors are more than enthusiastic about the company’s future projects, at least from a general consensus perspective. However, it is important to note that the Roadster is a fun and cool project that pushes the boundaries of what people thought was possible for an automobile.

What we saw last week was the first true example of a flying car, and despite the backlash about how it might not contribute to Tesla’s grand ambitions, it’s okay to have fun sometimes, too.

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Investor's Corner

SpaceX’s biggest earnings test yet lands Tuesday, and Tesla shareholders should be watching

SpaceX reports earnings Tuesday as Wall Street watches AI spending, Starlink growth and Tesla merger

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SpaceX reports third quarter results after the market closes Tuesday, with a webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET streamed on X, and Tesla follows a day later. Bloomberg consensus, cited by Pepperstone, calls for revenue of $12.89 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $6.62 billion and adjusted EPS near $0.15. That would be about 65% growth from the second quarter and SpaceX’s first profitable quarter since its IPO. Analysts expect roughly $6.4 billion from AI and $4.9 billion from Starlink, which is projected to reach 14.3 million consumer subscribers. Capital spending is forecast at $19.6 billion, leaving free cash flow near negative $11.6 billion.

The numbers matter because SpaceX has spent months trying to win over a skeptical market. It priced its record IPO at $135, spiked to $225.64, then sank near $105 in early August. Friday’s close of $146.03 sits about 28% below the June high. The Q2 report beat on revenue at $7.8 billion and put Starlink at 12 million subscribers, but $18.4 billion of capex hurt the stock. Since then SpaceX reached orbit on Starship Flight 14 with 26 Starlink V3 satellites, agreed to buy 800 MHz spectrum for about $8 billion as part of its Starlink Mobile push, and signed a fourth compute hosting deal in four months worth roughly $13 billion a year from December. Management is targeting more than 2 gigawatts of compute by year end and a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate. Evercore ISI, which raised its target to $275, said the quarter may be judged more on those targets than the reported figures

All of this sits under the Tesla merger question. Barclays analyst Dan Levy expects an all stock deal in which SpaceX buys Tesla at a premium, using reference values of $2.1 trillion and $1.5 trillion, and said an announcement would need to come by late October or early November to be voted on at Tesla’s December 6 annual meeting. Barclays estimates Musk would hold about 37% of the combined company and 56% of the votes. Musk said in July that combining companies cannot be discussed on an earnings call, but an investor question asking when SpaceX will merge with Tesla is sitting on SpaceX’s Q&A platform, and Teslarati has tracked how the Roadster demo revived the talk.

If a deal happens, Tuesday’s result would effectively set the price Tesla holders would receive. Their shares would convert into SpaceX stock, along with exposure to a company with a heavy investment on AI, while Tesla itself expects 2026 capex above $25 billion. A strong quarter and calmer spending would make that exchange easier to sell. Another round of heavy capex and a falling stock would make it harder.

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