Tesla has had a long history with Swedish Unions. IF Metall, a Swedish Metalworkers Union, has been involved in a labor dispute against Tesla for over a year now, with the strike beginning back in October 2023.
The core issue lies in Tesla’s refusal to sign a collective bargaining agreement with IF Metall. In Sweden, these are the norm. However, Tesla compensates its workers well, and it seems that many of its employees in Sweden don’t even want to sign the collective agreement—they would be losing out on a lot. Employees have banded together to wear vests that say “Tack, det ӓr bra” - “Thanks, I’m good” in response to the unionization efforts.
Tesla does not have any unions in any of its facilities across the world - and signing one in Sweden would be a massive change. United Autoworkers in the US (UAW) has also been working towards establishing an autoworkers union in Tesla, but it has never really taken off.
Previous Impacts
The strike originally targeted just Tesla’s service centers but quickly grew beyond that. IF Metall expanded the strike to include painters, suppliers, electricians, postal workers, and many other unionized bodies within Sweden. Hydro Extrusions, a notable Tesla supplier, lost its primary contract with Tesla due to the strike in early 2024.
Sympathy strikes have also impacted the mailing of registrations and license plates for new Tesla owners, which led to a lawsuit against IF Metall and other unions involved.
Superchargers Unpowered
Now, the latest impact of the strike has left 100 Tesla Supercharger stalls across six different sites unpowered. All these sites have been permitted, built, and fully set up. Now, the last step is to just power them on.
This step lies in the hands of one of the unions working for local electricity companies - who are conducting sympathy strikes against Tesla. Max de Zegher, Tesla’s Director of Charging, previously commented that not enabling these Supercharger stations will leave EV drivers struggling over the Holiday period.
And that prediction has come true. Nicklas, a Swede who has been covering the dispute on X, recorded a video of the few Supercharger stations that are working - where Tesla vehicles are lined up waiting to charge.
Teslas (mostly) in the middle of 🇸🇪Sweden waiting in line at a Superchargerstation in Malung. Can you count how many there are in line?
Max commented again on the situation, pointing out that it's not just Tesla drivers suffering - this impacts other EV drivers in Sweden as well. Tesla’s Supercharger network in Europe uses the CCS2 standard and is open to other electric vehicles as well.
Tesla vehicles and other EVs are now either lined up and waiting for long charge queues or being diverted to third-party sites, many of whom are unable to keep up with the Holiday travel impacts and whose uptimes are nowhere near the 99.99% availability that the Supercharger network provides.
We’re hoping to see a positive resolution to this strike, as it seems the employees of Tesla want no part of the union, but the union wishes to insert themselves into the equation anyway.
Since November 2024, Tesla has quietly trialed a new direct-to-consumer part sales program. The original program launched with only a few items: windshield wipers, air filters, license plate brackets, and low-voltage batteries (16V only).
The program has clearly seen some initial success, and Tesla has now begun to expand it even further.
Tesla’s Electronic Parts Catalog
Tesla’s Electronic Parts Catalog (EPC) now allows users to order individual parts or complete assemblies for various vehicle parts.
Previously, users were required to either visit or schedule service with Tesla Service to order parts, even if Tesla wouldn’t be the one installing them. The other option was to be an approved business, like a body shop or mechanic, which would be allowed to order directly from Tesla’s EPC.
Now, certain parts with a shopping cart icon in the EPC can be purchased directly online using your Tesla account. You can even order parts for vehicles you don’t own - so if you want to buy a Model S Brake Caliper Service Kit without owning a Model S, you can now do so.
Tesla points out these changes on pages that have orderable parts with the text: “EPC now supports direct-to-customer online ordering for a subset of parts (to be expanded with future releases).”
Part Availability & Shipping
Shipping is currently only available to addresses in the United States, but we expect Tesla to roll this out in other countries in the future.
Parts can be ordered individually or in batches if you have a larger repair or replacement to be made. Part availability is subject to what has been officially made available by Tesla, as well as general availability. For now, there’s only a small subset of parts that are orderable, such as brake rotors and other similar parts. If you need to replace something more complex, you’ll still need to put in a ticket with Tesla Service through the app to get it ordered.
Cybertruck Parts
Additionally, no parts are available for the Cybertruck for the time being. We expect this is due to a lack of part availability for the Cybertruck while Tesla continues to ramp production. This will likely change in the coming months as Tesla continues to both expand Cybertruck production and make more parts available on the EPC.
Right to Repair
This is a great change for Tesla and helps address an issue some potential buyers have — the right to repair. Tesla has slowly been marching toward this goal by first making Service Mode available to everyone, opening up their EPC, adding Vehicle Maintenance History, and continually improving their Service Mode and service manuals.
Over the last few years, Apple has faced pressure over the right for consumers to repair their own devices. When you have a product with a lot of proprietary parts, like Apple or Tesla, you need to build tools to help consumers and third-party service centers repair devices. It seems that Tesla is well ahead of the curve here, which will help them avoid any future legal issues.
Teslas already don’t need much maintenance, and what they do need is already fairly easy to work on. Service manuals, as well as awesome new features like the Cybertruck’s interactive wiring diagram in Service Mode, make them one of the easiest electric vehicles to work on. You can check out Tesla’s Electronic Parts Catalog here.
Tesla’s vehicles all have a built in Service Mode, where you can find working diagrams of anything from the HVAC system, low or high voltage systems, your power steering, or infotainment. All of this is included on-vehicle, and doesn’t require a third-party tool or subscription.
Of course, if you need more information, Tesla does offer Toolbox3, a fairly inexpensive subscription package that can be downloaded onto any laptop and connected to any Tesla - without the hassle of needing a special manufacturer-specific OBD tool.
Thanks to John Kelly for finding this. Let’s dig into it.
48V LVCS Connector Reference
Cybertruck runs on a 48V architecture, called LVCS, or Low-Voltage Connector Standard. They recently launched this standard to the rest of the automotive industry, in hopes of promoting standardization and progress.
48V and LVCS offer Tesla the unprecedented ability to optimize the wiring inside Cybertruck and future vehicles, massively reducing the complexity and cost - and also ensuring that everything within the vehicle is networked. That networking means that you can also debug the Cybertruck’s wiring from within the vehicle - without needing to disassemble the entire thing.
The wiring diagram, set to the front cabin view.
John Kelly on X
The Wiring Service Diagram offers the ability to search for particular connectors, and also see where the wiring runs originate and terminate. And that’s not all - you’re also able to pull up the pinouts, wire colors, and harness connections to see everywhere that specific connector brings data, power, or anything else to.
The pinout view for a particular connector.
John Kelly on X
This is an fantastic update, and enables anyone, including a DIY home mechanic, to be able to figure out exactly what might be wrong with a particular system, as well as how to potentially correct it. In addition, all of this data is freely available within the vehicle, and nothing else is required to be able to access it other than sitting down and entering Service Mode Plus.
How to Access It
For this particular interface, you’ll need to access Tesla’s Service Mode Plus, which means you’ll need a subscription to Toolbox 3, Tesla’s Service Software. We won’t walk you through that procedure here, as we recommend you review Tesla’s Service Manuals before jumping in.
Assuming you know what you’re doing, once TB3 is setup and connected to the vehicle, you can enter Service Mode Plus from the TB3 primary menu, and then navigate your way to the Low Voltage section. The Connector Reference Tool is its own sub-heading, and the search tool to look for particular connectors is in the top right.
