Published May 24, 2012
By Jeff Cobb
Do you live on the East Coast and had wanted to park a Tesla Model S in your driveway, but weren’t quite ready to head west (or have one shipped) to get one?
As Tesla Motors prepares for first Model S deliveries June 22, the company’s 22nd worldwide location will be its first on the Right Coast, and is located in the The Westchester shopping center in White Plains, New York.
Tesla Motors says it is “reinventing the car-buying experience with its unique retail model.”
Like other such showrooms catering to sensibilities held important to its growing list of buyers and those merely curious, the experience will be one of interacting with a hands-on exhibit.
“Our sales strategy is very different from the rest of the automotive industry - we put our stores in high foot-traffic locations so we can tell as many people as possible about Tesla’s incredible cars,” says George Blankenship, Tesla’s vice president of worldwide sales and ownership experience. “Opening our own stores allows us to ensure consumers interested in learning more about Tesla will receive an amazing customer experience from the moment they walk through the door.”
The store will have “a record number of vehicles at a Tesla store opening,” the company says of four Model S Betas on display.
Customers can personalize their own Model S via an interactive touchscreen intended to inform and engage them about the ground-up designed electric sedan available with myriad options and three different levels of battery power.
Tesla will open four more such stores this summer at 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California, Fashion Square in Scottsdale, Arizona, Washington Square in Portland, Oregon, and on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, Florida.
“These stores will expand Tesla’s ‘new retail experience’ to both new and existing markets,” Tesla says.
Of the three battery levels – 40 kilowatt-hour, 60-kwh, and 85 kwh, the company is rewarding the highest bidders first by beginning roll out next month with 1,200 Signature Series 85-kwh models and likely other 85-kwh models besides.
A recent interview with the company’s communications manager indicated 60- and 40-kwh versions will follow at a later undisclosed date.
So, if you want one, you better go put your name on the list. To date, Tesla has orders for over 10,000 of the new sedans and told us it expects to deliver 5,000 by the end of the calendar year.
