A significant part of Tesla’s growth in gross profit last quarter came from an increase in profits from servicing Tesla’s vehicles and selling energy through its Supercharger network – things Elon Musk said Tesla wouldn’t aim to make profits from.
Back in 2016, Elon Musk was quoted saying this at a Tesla event when defending the automaker’s strategy to operate its own service centers rather than using dealerships:
Our philosophy with respect to service is not to make a profit from service. I think that it’s terrible to make a profit on service.
Musk often criticized other automakers, specifically GM, for selling “cars that then need service” at dealerships and then making a lot of profits selling replacement parts to customers through those dealerships.
The CEO is often quoted saying, “The best service is no service,” and Tesla aims to improve service by increasing the reliability of its vehicles, resulting …