How Tesla Keeps A Monopoly On Fixing Its Cars

For years now Tesla Motors has been fighting an extensive legal battle for the right to sell their cars throughout the United States. It’s a struggle that pits the young David of auto manufacturing upstarts against a Goliath of politically savvy new-car dealers and automakers.

But Tesla is now pursuing its own barriers to other players when it comes to who can service or repair a Tesla.

As Bozi Tatarevic wrote on Thursday at The Truth About Cars, Tesla is neither required by law nor bound by auto-industry agreements to share repair data with independent mechanics, since it doesn’t rely on franchised dealerships.

Repair shop, service center, you—doesn’t matter. Even if you own your car outright, Tesla will not give you the tools or data to fix your car, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

This may not be a big deal now, since Tesla’s share of the entire 230-million plus American car market is less than a twentieth of 1 percent, and the company has been generous with free repairs or upgrades. But as Tesla continues to pursue its ambitious goal of selling 500,000 cars by 2020, and its older cars accumulate more miles, the economics of eliminating competition on the repair side of the ledger could make the company incredibly wealthy—and the owners of those vehicles will pay for that lack of competition.

How wealthy? Right now Tesla charges the following service costs for their vehicles:

$600 — Annual Inspection (Every Year or 12,500 miles)