EV’s Republic opened in March 2023 with three service bays and 20 employees at its shop in Rancho Cordova, focused on servicing Tesla Inc. cars.
The company just added four more bays and eight more employees, and it is expanding with new shops in San Jose and then Los Angeles with its EV-focused service.
“People drive them until they die, or they don’t take a charge anymore, and then they come to us,” said Gary Bastien, EV’s Republic's marketing manager.
EV’s Republic, and some other independent auto repair shops, are capitalizing on an opportunity they see. With Tesla models among the top-selling cars in California, Bastien and others say that Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) doesn't have enough capacity to provide maintenance and repairs.
"Tesla doesn’t have the service structure to provide service to the number of cars they have sold," Bastien said. "That’s not their business model."
Tesla representatives didn’t return calls or emails for comment about its service. In the Sacramento region, there is a Sacramento Tesla sales and service center on Arden Way and a Tesla sales and service location in Rocklin.
“They’re building 1.3 million new Teslas every year. I think they are happy to let the older cars go to the independent market. Their focus is on selling cars,” said Dave Vennel, founder and mechanic at Black Rock Automotive Inc. in Sacramento, which has been open since 2003.
Vennel has taken in-person training at Tesla several times to get the skills to work on Teslas, as have four of his technicians. Black Rock, which is on C Street in Sacramento, also sent its mechanics to school to work on hybrid gas/electric cars when they started showing up in numbers.
In 2023, Tesla reported that it delivered 1.8 million Tesla cars.
Revenue at EV’s Republic is “growing nicely” Bastien said, adding that demand is increasing and that is why the company is expanding. He added that many independent repair shops are specialized in fuel-powered cars, so there are only a handful of shops pursuing the electric vehicle market.
One of the perceived hallmarks of EVs is that they require little service, Bastien said.
People believe that all one has to do is change the tires and brakes once in a while, but that isn’t true, he said. There are issues that arise with the drive motors, which do need oil occasionally. There are also other issues around the battery, including charging, resetting and syncing or replacing the battery.
The battery packs themselves run down. They can be serviced, and in some cases refurbished, he said.
Tesla, based in Austin, Texas, has been selling cars since 2008 with the Roadster, which had a limited production run until 2012. Tesla started selling its Model S luxury sedan in 2012. It has sold even more of the cheaper Model 3, which debuted in 2017. The Model X, the SUV with the gull-wing doors, has been sold since 2015 and is still on the market. The Tesla Model Y has been selling for four years, and the Cybertruck was recently released.
