> I demanded to speak to the manager who admitted right away that the car was indeed missing a part and that they would fix it later.
That sounds suspiciously like, "We were aware of that and were hoping you wouldn't notice, but we can't get the parts. If we promise to call you later, will you stop bothering us?"
It wasn't even just that dealership, it was every Model 3 shipped during a certain time period. Back when it was happening, there were posts about it on the Tesla subreddit. Nobody was told their car wasn't going to have the features they paid for, and Tesla blamed it on the chip shortage and said they'd install the missing features once they had the supplies.
You would expect Tesla to make sure customers are well informed about certain features are missing, and being added when they become available. The missing USB was known (due to unavailability).
For missing brake pads, you hope q&a catches that, and some electronic alert shows up if brake pads are missing (or worn beyond being useful).
That sounds suspiciously like, "We were aware of that and were hoping you wouldn't notice, but we can't get the parts. If we promise to call you later, will you stop bothering us?"