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Tesla acknowledges its service challenges, pledges serious repair team ramp
It’s no secret that Tesla is experiencing challenges meeting the service needs of its customers, with some owners noting that appointments with the company’s service team are now available weeks or even months out. This has caused an issue of sorts for Tesla. Its vehicles may indeed provide the best ownership experience in the market — as long as they don’t require service. Once they do, then a substantial amount of patience is advised on the owners’ part.
The issue of Tesla’s service network and its present shortcomings was discussed by CFO Zachary Kirkhorn during the Q3 2021 earnings call. According to the executive, there are a couple of factors that contributed to the current service situation, from the pandemic and the world’s recovery from it, as well as the ongoing supply chain challenges. Kirkhorn noted, however, that some of Tesla’s service issues are not necessarily exclusive to the company.
“There’s a couple of things that have contributed to that based upon the information that we have. The first is that — and I think this is kind of not — this is not unique to us, is that the return to some sense of normalcy in a post-pandemic world has happened, I think, more quickly than most people expected. And what we’re seeing here is that the number of miles that people are driving has increased. There may have been some demand for service during 2020 or in the early parts of 2021 that customers put off, and so there’s a bit of a catch-up that’s occurring.
“That has increased demand for service. At the same time, in the macro-environment here, logistics, moving parts, sourcing parts has become increasingly more difficult, which is a well-known issue in the world right now, as well as challenges in the labor market. And so this kind of the simultaneous increase in demand for service with the ability to supply that service has been impacted for the reasons I mentioned. And so we saw an uptick primarily in Europe and North America in service wait times over the course of the summer,” Kirkhorn noted.
The Tesla CFO added that the company is doing what it can to grow its service network, from its physical centers to its mobile service fleet. Kirkhorn noted that over the last year, and despite the presence of the pandemic, Tesla’s physical service centers grew by 35%, and the mobile service fleet saw an even more impressive growth of 40%. But amidst these efforts, the CFO reiterated that Tesla’s primary goal is still to create vehicles that are extremely reliable, since the best service is no service.
“And we’ve been working extremely hard since then to address this, and we’ve seen our wait times come down. So this is not the case in every location, but if you think about it from regional average perspective, we are seeing improvements there. We remain super-focused on adding locations. And so over the last year, we’ve grown our physical footprint of service centers by 35%.
“We’ve grown our footprint of mobile repair by over 40%. We’re also adding staffing as quickly as we can in the areas that are most impacted by the imbalance of supply and demand for service. But I think the most important part about all of this is — and we’ve said this on calls before, where the best service is no service. And so we have been incredibly focused as a company both on the initial quality of our vehicles and reliability of our vehicles,” Kirkhorn said.
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Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) endured one of its sharpest single-day declines in years on July 23, tumbling approximately 14.5 percent and closing near $320 after opening the session around $374. The drop erased more than $140 billion in market value amid heavy trading volume and left the shares at multi-week lows.
The sell-off followed the company’s second-quarter 2026 results, released the previous evening. Tesla reported record revenue of $28.2 billion, up 26 percent year over year, driven by a Q2-record 480,126 vehicle deliveries. Energy storage deployments also rose strongly.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Yet profitability disappointed sharply. Operating income fell 57 percent to $398 million, compressing the operating margin to just 1.4 percent. Non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $0.33, well below the roughly $0.53 analysts had expected. Free cash flow turned negative by $1.1 billion as capital expenditures surged 142 percent to $5.8 billion, largely tied to accelerated spending on artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous systems.
The losses on capex were expected, as Tesla said it would be spending heavily in 2026.
Investors also reacted to lingering uncertainty surrounding key product timelines. During the Earnings Call, management reiterated ambitions for Robotaxi deployment and the Optimus humanoid robot, but offered limited new concrete milestones, renewing questions about execution pace that have long accompanied Tesla’s ambitious roadmap.
The magnitude of the decline places it among Tesla’s more severe one-day percentage losses since its 2010 initial public offering. Historically, the two largest single-day drops (split-adjusted) remain September 8, 2020, when shares fell 21.1 percent amid broader market volatility and valuation concerns, and January 13, 2012, with a 19.3 percent plunge during the company’s early growth struggles.
Other notable declines include an 18.6 percent drop on March 16, 2020, at the onset of pandemic-related market turmoil. Thursday’s move ranks roughly ninth on the all-time list but stands out as the steepest in more than a year.
Despite the short-term pain, Tesla’s long-term trajectory has repeatedly recovered from such volatility. The latest results underscore both the strength of its core automotive and energy businesses and the near-term costs of heavy investment in next-generation technologies.
Elon Musk clapped back at France’s decision to withhold the approval for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised system, projecting a clear and blunt message to French Transport Minister Phillippe Tabarot, after he publicly rejected the technology in its current form.
Tabarot outlines several concerns with Tesla Full Self-Driving in a detailed video statement, where he said, “The safety trade-offs are not yet sufficient to authorize it as it currently stands,” he said. He emphasized that FSD is not a true self-driving system and that the driver remains fully responsible.
Key issues Tabarot also brought up included allowing speeding when surrounding traffic exceeds limits and what he believes are insufficient guarantees of driver attention during complex urban maneuvers such as lane changes, intersections, and roundabouts.
Delaying the approval of FSD in France will cost lives
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
While acknowledging technological progress and France’s support for autonomous innovation, Tabarot stressed that deployment must prioritize road safety. He noted ongoing technical discussions with Tesla, the Netherlands, and other European partners, with further ecosystem meetings planned for the fall.
Musk’s rebuke highlights the human cost of regulatory caution. Tesla’s latest safety reports provide compelling data supporting accelerated adoption. In the most recent 12-month period, vehicles using FSD (Supervised) recorded one major collision per approximately 5.1 million miles driven, dramatically better than the U.S. national average of one crash per 698,000 miles.
Even Tesla vehicles driven manually with active safety features outperform the average by a wide margin. These figures come from billions of real-world miles of telemetry, showing FSD vehicles involved in far fewer incidents than both manual Teslas and the broader U.S. fleet.
Critics argue Tesla’s comparisons require careful scrutiny regarding reporting thresholds and fleet demographics, yet the data consistently positions FSD as a potential lifesaver. With road fatalities remaining a leading cause of death worldwide, Musk contends that proven safer technology should not face prolonged bureaucratic hurdles.
France’s measured approach reflects the broader European regulatory caution, which many, especially Musk, have been critical of in the past. However, as autonomous systems from Tesla and competitors like Waymo demonstrate superior safety in independent studies, pressure is mounting for harmonized approvals.
Musk’s warning carries the belief that every month of delay may equate to avoidable tragedies on European roads.
In a striking revelation that underscores the lucrative crossover between Big Tech and space exploration, Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, disclosed a massive $94.1 billion equity stake in SpaceX following the rocket company’s blockbuster initial public offering earlier this year.
The disclosure came in Alphabet’s quarterly filing, marking the first time the long-held private investment has been publicly valued at market prices. Google was an early backer, investing alongside Fidelity in 2015 with roughly $500-900 million at a time when SpaceX was valued around $12 billion.
That bet has delivered extraordinary returns, roughly a hundredfold, transforming a strategic play on satellite internet and launch capabilities into one of Alphabet’s largest assets.
Google, $GOOGL, has said they hold $94 billion in SpaceX, $SPCX, shares after IPO.
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) July 23, 2026
Of the total holding, approximately $80 billion remains subject to short-term post-IPO lockup restrictions, preventing near-term sales. An additional $14.1 billion faces longer-term restrictions, extending into the third quarter of 2027. This structure limits immediate liquidity but protects against market volatility as SpaceX transitions into public trading.
The SpaceX position contributed significantly to gains in Alphabet’s broader investment portfolio, which also includes a major stake in AI leader Anthropic. Combined, these holdings helped drive nearly $100 billion in investment gains during the second quarter, providing a substantial boost to net income amid ongoing AI spending pressures.
Analysts view the disclosure as validation of Alphabet’s venture strategy beyond its core search and cloud businesses. The investment aligns with deeper ties, including reported multi-billion-dollar deals for AI computing capacity on SpaceX infrastructure. As SpaceX advances Starship flights, Starlink expansion, and ambitious Mars goals under Elon Musk, Google’s stake positions it to benefit from the commercialization of space.
For Alphabet, the windfall highlights how patient, forward-looking bets in transformative sectors can yield outsized rewards. While lockups temper short-term impact, the holding cements SpaceX as a cornerstone of Alphabet’s diversified portfolio in an era where aerospace, AI, and connectivity increasingly intersect. Investors will watch closely as restrictions lift and SpaceX’s public performance unfolds.
Tesla stock tumbles after earnings, one of its sharpest single-day declines
Elon Musk is not happy about this Tesla Full Self-Driving approval delay
