Tesla opens first flagship store in San Francisco

Tesla San Francisco store

U.S. electric automaker Tesla Motors is establishing a retail presence in San Francisco with its largest flagship store in North America to-date.

Officially opened Aug. 12, the 65,000-square-foot, three-floor sales, service and delivery center is housed in a former Chevrolet dealership. Due to the store’s proximity to Tesla’s home base in Palo Alto, CA, this showroom represents something of a global flagship, with the company considering hosting product launches there.

Coming home
According to Automotive News, the showroom is located on Van Ness Avenue, a street nicknamed Auto Row that also includes independent dealerships from Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley and Lamborghini.

Tesla is aggressively expanding its retail network ahead of the release of its anticipated Model 3 entry-level vehicle, which it believes will have a strong interest from urbanites. Tesla opens a new store every week, targeting dense cities and California, which boasts its best-performing stores.

Twenty percent of San Francisco’s residents do not own a car, which has helped ridesharing services such as Uber gain in popularity. Even taking car-averse consumers into account, if the Model 3 reception around the world is any indication, Tesla will see strong interest from tech-savvy San Franciscans for the vehicle once it goes on the market.

Line for Tesla’s Model 3 in Hong Kong

As reservations opened for Tesla’s Model 3 on March 31, prospective car owners lined up outside of the automaker’s stores to be the first to own the anticipated vehicle.

The Model 3 will not go into production for almost two years, but that did not stop fans from camping out in line to guarantee their spot in the queue. With much speculation about Tesla’s entry-level electric vehicle, the automaker has created a rush to its stores typically only seen during Apple product launches.

The Model 3 will be Tesla’s most accessibly priced vehicle yet, costing around $35,000 (see story).

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