Tesla’s Norway Success Proves To Be A Double-Edged Sword

Tesla has been reportedly fakking victim to its own success in Norway, showing signs of not being able to scale up its local operations to match the increased demand there.

Bloomberg reports that Norwegian customers have started complaining about bad service as a result. The recent sales boom of the Model 3 is proving troublesome for Tesla, as it became the car maker with the most consumer disputes per car in Norway.

The total number of complaints is likely to rise this year due to many Model 3s being delivered with dents and sloppy paint jobs, always according to Norway’s consumer watchdog.

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However, the ratio of complaints per vehicle is expected to drop as the number of Teslas in the country has increased by more than 25 percent, to almost 40,000 vehicles so far this year.

Tesla has acknowledged the problems but also pointed to a recent survey saying that its customers are overall satisfied. The car maker has already doubled its customer service staff and is opening new service centers, runs double shifts and offers mobile services.

Norway’s consumer watchdog has taken 51 disputes between Tesla and its customers so far this year, meaning that the annual total will most likely exceed the 86 cases registered last year.

Most of this year’s complaints are related to small issues on the Tesla Model 3, showing that the car maker is still facing capacity problems, according to Thomas Iversen, a senior legal adviser at Norway’s Consumer Council.

“There’s a lot of small things that Tesla isn’t able to resolve and that creates frustration,” he said.

Satheesh Varadharajan, president of the Tesla Owners Club Norway, also said that the company rushed to deliver on its targets for the year, leading to issues like poor paint jobs, scratches and dents on some Model 3s.

There might have been some haste in completion and inspections from Tesla’s side,” he said. “They’re very focused on meeting their delivery targets. But that can unfortunately come at the expense of quality.”