Sunday, February 6, 2011

Tesla is Coming to Santana Row!

Tesla may not have been able to relocate their offices and factory to North San Jose as originally planned, but they will have a presence here. The word just got out that they are planning to build a "store" at Santana Row! Instead of using dealers and 3rd parties, they are planning to sell cars directly to consumers much like an Apple store. They already have 30 of these worldwide that are either open already or near opening, and the closest one right now is the original in Menlo Park.

I imagine the first car they will sell at the store will be the Model S (pictured below), a $56k all electric vehicle with up to a 300 mile battery, 0-60 of 5.6 seconds, a 17 inch LCD touchscreen, and seating for up to 7 people. These will start shipping in late 2012.

This year Tesla will also announce the Model X, which is a crossover version built on the same platform as the Model S. Eventually they will also release a Model C (~$30k compact or midsize electric car) and a new roadster to replace their current $100k+ speed demon--which may transform into a 4-seat convertible in it's second life. While I'm a huge advocate of Downtown San Jose, I think Tesla made the right choice with Santana Row. Now please excuse me while I check my couch for some spare change.

Tesla Model S

5 comments:

  1. It will be interesting to see the transition to electric cars, and I admire Tesla for starting to pave the way. I will likely be most interested in the way energy will be available to consumers in the future due to the potentially greater number of electric vehicles hitting the roads.

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  2. The beauty of electric is the infrastructure is already built. Any electrical outlet can turn into an EV charging station.

    Downtown already has 6 EV stations, include a new one with free parking right in front of city hall. When Tesla comes to SR, I'm sure they're going to install a whole fleet of them.

    Here is just one company that is installing stations, there are going to be thousands of them by the end of the year: http://www.mychargepoint.net/find-stations.php

    Many retail spots are expected to offer free charging (aka free gas) to encourage people to come down. This is definitely the future =)

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  3. That's nice. Hopefully with the much greater demand for electricity, the price will come down and more terminals will be installed as well.

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  4. Definitely, the stations are cheap too. Between $5-10k each. I've even seen a few that are solar powered.

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  5. We love the hard work and effort Tesla Motors and Elon Musk have done, way to rock the competition! Tesla and Elon Musk
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrzMdoKPPaA


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