[Spooky23]

Tesla is a super risky piece of kit for an insurer.

They are a sole source provider of sorts and maintain a tight lock on authorized body shops. Even a car with lots of low volume high cost parts like a Benz has a competitive market of resellers, dealers and service providers.

Tesla is the problem here. Having them be an insurance provider just makes them a bigger problem.

[greglindahl]

Can you name any aluminum-bodied car that doesn't lock down authorized body shops?

[Spooky23]

I know that BMW has 50+ in my state, and that Tesla recently doubled their authorized body shop count — to 2.

[greglindahl]

And all 50+ BMW authorized body shops can work on BMW's aluminum-bodied cars? Only a modest % of BMW's cars are aluminum-bodied.

A little googling shows sentences like "Any body shop you are considering to repair your BMW 5 and 6 series, should be specifically equipped to perform special aluminum welding." and "As part of our CERTIFICATIONS by various manufacturers, we are required to purchase state of the art tools specifically for aluminum repair."