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Musk Holds Talks in Norway on Bigger Fix to Tesla's Service Woes

Musk Holds Talks in Norway on Bigger Fix to Tesla's Service Woes

(Bloomberg) -- Tesla Inc.’s Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk visited Norway to accelerate a fix to service capacity in a key market for the carmaker after delays and bottlenecks angered customers in Scandinavia’s richest nation.

Musk’s stay in Norway was part of a broader trip through Europe that the CEO advertised on Twitter on Saturday as the company is deploying its new Model 3 on the continent after a tumultuous year in 2018.

A country of just more than 5 million people, Norway is nevertheless Tesla’s third-biggest market thanks to generous incentives for low-emission vehicles and high taxes on regular cars. But a lack of capacity for maintenance and repairs has led to long queues, raising more questions about whether the company is able to keep up with its own growth.

Musk had “constructive meetings” with the Norwegian service team’s management over the weekend, Even Sandvold Roland, a local Tesla spokesman, said in an emailed reply to questions.

“Tesla Norway has taken significant measures to improve its service capacity in 2018, including doubling the number of service employees,” the spokesman said. “The meetings have focused on how this positive development can be accelerated further.”

Musk was no longer in Norway on Monday, the spokesman said. He declined to provide details on what sites Musk had visited, which executives he had met and any goals for further staff hires, as well as the number of Model 3 cars that are expected to be delivered to Norwegian customers.

Norwegian media reported that Musk visited the company’s offices in Oslo on Sunday.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mikael Holter in Oslo at mholter2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Herron at jherron9@bloomberg.net, Jonas Bergman

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