Tesla to open new ‘Tesla Centers’ to avoid dealership restrictions, increase deliveries

Tesla plans to open a new type of retail location called ‘Tesla Centers’ to get around dealership restrictions and try to increase deliveries, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Last quarter, Tesla announced record deliveries of 97,000 cars around the world.

However, it came up short on its attempt to deliver 100,000 cars in a quarter for the first time.

The demand was there, but Tesla had logistical problems and didn’t have enough cars in the right markets at the end of the quarter to achieve the goal.

In the US, sources familiar with the matter told Electrek that Tesla still had about 3,000 cars in inventory at the end of the quarter.

While this is quite low by most automakers’ standards, Tesla believes that it could have delivered most of those cars if they were in the right delivery centers in time.

Therefore, the automaker is taking steps to improve its delivery time and flow of vehicles.

We reported last month that Elon Musk wants to fix Tesla’s logistic issues by taking a page out of Amazon’s book and create a continuous flow of vehicles to delivery centers.

Now sources familiar with the matter told Electrek that Tesla communicated to employees that they are planning to open new ‘Tesla Centers’ in most major metro areas.

The plan is to have large new locations that will operate sales, service, and delivery 7 days a week.

Tesla’s US sales and delivery operations are slowed down due to regulations prohibiting direct sales by automakers in some states and old “Blue laws” in others that don’t allow car dealer operations on Sundays.

By focusing on the sale of “energy” at these ‘Tesla Centers’, Tesla believes that it could get around those restrictions and significantly increase its overall delivery capacity and efficiency.

According to our sources, Tesla is planning to start implementing this strategy in the fourth quarter.

We contacted Tesla about the new strategy and we will update if we get a response.

Electrek’s Take

Interesting approach that I am sure will result in some pushback from car dealer associations, but that is par for the course.

It may look like Tesla trying to find a loophole, but in my opinion, those laws don’t make much sense today and they are often misused.

We are getting information that shows Tesla is able to sustain some very strong demand right now and they are making moves to keep that going – more on that later.

The automaker is going to focus its efforts on streamlining the delivery process and reducing lead times in order to try to achieve another delivery record this quarter.

These new ‘Tesla Centers’ are apparently part of those plans.