Those of Los Angeles' much-vaunted and desperately-hip Westside can now shop for their EVs in a new 10,000-square foot showroom owned by Tesla, the troubled Northern California electric vehicle-builder. Tesla employees, not commissioned salespeople, will also staff the facility, opened on May 1st. Located at the heavily-trafficked corner of Santa Monica and Sepulveda Boulevards, one of the most-clogged intersections in the entire city, Tesla says (still) that the best is yet to come. Like actual cars. (Photos --- Staging a business opening in Los Angeles? You need red-coated parking valets, uniformed "actors/servers/models" who "circulate" with trays of cheap champagne and "crudites," whatever they are, a security guard-looking person or two, especially if celebrities are expected, and in LA, they always are, and, perhaps most-important, nearly-unreadable signage; Below, Here's an actual big-time celebrity Tesla managed to corral into their dealership opening; yes, it's "Q", or, as he's known to everyone else, Quincy Jones. Jones is also a great actor; see how he acts as if he knows the Tesla exec he is hugging).
A better start would have been locating the showroom even farther west, in the People's 
Republic of Santa Monica (one of our old and much-missed hometowns) or Venice (the only part of the city of Los Angeles which actually touches the ocean) ... West LA is cool, if you're a UCLA student or a Hasidic Jewish family with 11 kids and family members "in the diamond trade". But it just ain't SM and doesn't even come close to Venice when it comes to cool, where zillionaire actors and their heavily-armored and -patrolled "vertical estates" share block space with 4th-generation public housing and strapped gangsters slingin' rock being the local live entertainment starting at 11pm each evening. Ask about the special Sunday afternoon shows during summer. (And I lived there, too, so don't get hinky with me about it).
Tesla, which forced-out its co-founder, Martin Eberhard, and is engaged in various lawsuits with car designer Henrik Fisker, recently took delivery of its first four production cars --- depending on who you talk to about that very touchy subject.
The first production car went to Tesla Motors chairman and chief financier Elon Musk, while car #2 is reserved for that forced-out co-founder, Martin Eberhard, who reportedly doesn't want his car until a special paint job is ready (we predict he'll never see that car --- getting forced out of a company you help found and staked isn't a good way to engender positive vibes). Tesla says that #4 was seen at the Top Marques Monaco show with U2's Bono behind the wheel. Investors, buyers and others hope that Roadster #3 might soon be on its way to an actual customer's garage.
The automaker says they have already pre-sold 600 cars and has a waiting list 400-strong. Priced at $100,000, Tesla demanded a $100,000 "deposit" from Roadster buyers willing and able to wait a long time until their cars are ready; there are plenty of oh-so-worried green-types with that kind of disposable income in LA. Which brings us to the new store. (Photo --- If you have a car dealership, you need a car to exhibit, like this $100,000 Tesla Roadster, one of four made in-time for the showroom's opening).
With reportage by Mark Rechtin of Automotive News (with our own inspired comments), we learn that the new store, close to the crawling 405 freeway and the congested corner of Santa Monica and Sepulveda Boulevards, makes a potent statement for forever-gridlocked Angelenos to buy an electric car.
Click below to read more about and see more photos of the new Tesla dealership in Los Angeles!
(Photo --- The photo which sold a lot of cars, or at least pre-sold them. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger visited the Tesla folks, co-founders Elon Musk and Martin Eberhard, pictured, when those two were still talking, almost two years ago in an airplane hangar at Santa Monica Airport; Tesla's founders have powerful political connections thanks to their making large political contributions, almost exclusively to Republicans, and in fact a key person in the company worked for the Bush White House. All this was documented in previous postings we've run on the company --- Be sure to "click to enlarge;" the security guy in the right background is standing next to Our Arnold in just about every photo or video he's been seen in since his election).
Of course, Tesla needs to get its two-seat roadster into production to give its new, first dealership something to sell. A development glitch with the Magna two-speed transmission forced a rapid redesign of a one-speed transmission in collaboration with Ricardo Inc. For the next several months, until the new transmission is ready, Teslas will be built on a slowed-down schedule by Lotus in England. Early-build cars will later have their transmissions replaced in a two-hour fix. So they say. How much confidence can buyers have in a car when the salesperson says, "Enjoy the car! Remember to come back in a few months when the transmission is ready!" (Photo --- There isn't a Car Nut who looks at crash test photos and doesn't shudder. They say Tesla's Roadster held-up well).
And we won't even mention the Tesla White Star, which company officials say is to be built in a new
facility in New Mexico (possibly a tax-free zone in that state, which is not known, yet, as a center of automotive production. If they think it's expensive to build and install a 1,000-pound battery in Northern California, wait until they ship them to New Mexico and also have to deal with that state's very hot and extremely cold blasts of air; even changes in air pressure between the state's low and high altitude areas have to be taken into consideration for many aspects of manufacturing). Tesla and Henrik Fisker have recently gotten "lawyered-up," as Tesla says Fisker's Karma show car is the car which Fisker was paid just under $1-million last year to design and build for Tesla. We shall see.
Next year, Tesla hopes to build its $109,000 roadster in knockdown kit form (KDF) in northern California, with the rolling chassis shipped from Lotus. The steep cost of having its European manufacturing base in euros and pound sterling has made business difficult, as the dollar continues its slide against almost all major world currencies. With the hefty 1,000-pound battery pack assembled in Northern California, putting a Tesla manufacturing base there might make sense. (Photo --- One of four Tesla Roadsters in the new showroom's driveway; note the red-coated valet, plain clothes security-type and temporary metal fencing, all of which in Los Angeles add up to: Free food for you and your friends, if you can talk your way into whatever it is!).
The Tesla store looks more like a cool ad agency or hip restaurant than a car dealership. Of course, in Southern California, it's often hard to tell if one is in a car dealership, a restaurant, a sushi bar, a karaoke club or an ad agency, so the locals are sort-of used to that problem. Just sort of stroll around, looking hungry, until someone either offers you food or asks if you know anything about the Nissan account. Its industrial look features poured concrete floors, exposed beams and ductwork, mirrored front glass and planter boxes filled with horsetail stems. The service department is out in the open to allow customers to see what is going on with their cars (as if they would know, anyway). Thankfully, they have a more private philosophy towards their restrooms.
The 10,000-square-foot dealership cost about $2 million to create, including the dismantling of two adjacent buildings to make the one large showroom.
Company founder and financier Elon Musk defended the concept of factory stores. “The Apple Stores have
worked out well. It’s a fantastic consumer experience,” Musk said. “We wanted a nontraditional automotive experience, and we have it.” Well, if he means opening a dealership when the company has built all of four cars, he's absolutely right about offering a 'nontraditional automotive experience'.
The next Tesla store will be in Menlo Park, near the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters, by summer. Tesla is looking to add stores in New York, Miami, Seattle and Chicago with further expansion based on market demand and creating service points where necessary. Other areas could include Washington, D.C., Durham, N.C., and Boston. We're sure people in all those cities, and many more, will be terribly interested in Tesla's products --- If the company can build them.
(Photo --- Rich-looking guy gets "the treatment" from a Tesla employee; no commissioned salespeople at this store ... The sales guy looks more like a waiter, anyway. Maybe he was!).
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