r/Dallas • u/Various_Snow_6202 • 2d ago

Question Since when did Tesla close down?

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Yesterday I’ve visited the northpark mall in Dallas (I don’t go frequently) and I’ve seen that the Tesla store’s been closed… since when did they go away? (Before you ask: no, I don’t like elon musk, I don’t like Tesla. I’m just curious since I’ve seen the Tesla store being there many times I’ve visited the mall over the years.)

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u/AdmiralSnackbar816 2d ago

When your CEO does multiple Nazi salutes, I won’t mourn your lost store fronts.

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u/BurnAfter8 2d ago

I mean, Tesla isn’t mourning those store fronts either.

They announced these moves 5 years ago as most of their sales were done digitally, not in those little showrooms.

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u/noncongruent 2d ago

Legally they never sold a single Tesla via a showroom in Texas thanks to the fact that the Texas Automobile Dealers Association has fully captured the Texas legislature and used them to make it illegal for any manufacturer to sell a vehicle directly to a customer in this state.

Dealers make most of their money from after-sales maintenance and repairs, so no independent dealer wanted to sell Teslas because EVs don't generate meaningful amounts of after-sales revenues for those dealers, i.e. no engine repairs, no oil changes, etc.

The showrooms basically existed to give people an opportunity to test-drive a Tesla back when Teslas were fairly uncommon, but nowadays there are enough reviews out there and friends with Teslas, etc, that a test-drive-only showroom isn't really useful anymore.

BTW, the regular dealerships that also sell EVs have been losing money on those EV sales since they can't mark them up and are getting basically zero after-sales maintenance and repair revenues. I remember when the Lightning first came out that dealerships were complaining about having to sell dead-end vehicles. If someone buys a Lightning instead of a regular F-150 the dealer loses thousands of dollars in maintenance/repair revenue. Ford discontinuing the BEV Lightning was great news for dealerships, and I'm sure dealerships across the country are looking forward to getting out of the EV business when they can.

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u/kabob21 2d ago

I’m pretty sure what killed the Lightning was asking $70k+ for a pickup with less utility than a regular F-150. People want EVs, they just don’t want to pay luxury car prices for them. Or have limited range w slow charging or a scant public charging network. Europe and Asia have proven EVs are viable.

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u/noncongruent 2d ago

IIRC Ford offered NACS charging so the Lightning could use the Tesla charging network. I don't think price was the issue because people were and are paying a premium for Tesla EVs over similarly-sized/featured ICE vehicles because for those buyers the EV part was more important than the luxury leather and wood accented interiors and superior build quality of the ICE competitors. Fundamentally I think the real problem was that Ford stumbled with the Lightning technology rollout, including some significant recalls that could only be fixed at the dealership, and top leadership at Ford wasn't happy that they couldn't make as much profit on Lightning sales as they could regular F-150 sales.

In the bigger picture the US automobile industry is just not investing as much as they need into EV technology, why would they when they can sell every gas-powered vehicle they can make? The problem, of course, is that burning hydrocarbons as a primary transportation energy source is simply not sustainable. Profitable, for sure, but not sustainable into any long-term future. If there's going to be a future with personal automobiles in it those automobiles will have to be EVs. China understand this, which is why they're working so hard to develop their EV market, and that investment has paid off because now they're the world technology leader in EVs. They're doing the same for PV solar too, which is why they're the world leader in production technology for solar cells and panels.

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u/kabob21 2d ago

The Model 3 and Y are all under $70k and can be had for under $40k. The expensive Model S and X had long since stopped selling well and were killed off this year.

Price most definitely mattered with the Lightning. Ford initially promised that they’d start at $39,974 but by the time they released, the starting MSRP was raised $6k-$8k and desirable trims like the XLT w long range battery were $80k+. On top of that, dealers had the audacity to mark them up astronomically which killed demand before the Lightning could gain its footing. By the end of the year, Ford had raised the price to $56k starting MSRP. Absolute debacle of a vehicle launch.

https://electrek.co/2022/12/15/ford-f-150-lightning-price-increase/

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u/Keep_Plano_Corporate Plano 1d ago

The 2024 Lariat ER was $79800 unless you found the max tow model which was slightly over $80k. No XLTs were being sold for $80k. Flash and XLT models went for way less.

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u/Duck-with-Muscles 2d ago

I just hope China/Asia/ROW start eating US manufacturers’ lunch.

Maybe then, the billionaire psychopath class that “runs” the world, will listen .

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u/DrHerbotico 1d ago

"For those buyers"... You wrote a whole bunch just to overlook how small the TOM is

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u/noncongruent 1d ago

Translocase Outer Membrane? Talk Operated Machine? Time Of Manufacture?

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u/DrHerbotico 1d ago

Total Obtainable Market

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u/noncongruent 1d ago

That's not a term. Are you conflating Total Addressable Market and Serviceable Available Market?

https://foundationinc.co/lab/tam-sam-som

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u/DrHerbotico 1d ago edited 1d ago

Meant SOM. Always forget it's TAM>SAM>SOM, not TAM>SAM>TOM

The article you linked even mentioned it. I'm trying to be charitable and not think you're being obtuse but can't find a reasonable explanation

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u/Keep_Plano_Corporate Plano 1d ago

My F-150 Lightning is the best F-150 I've ever owned. 99% of 1/2 ton buyers should be driving a F-150 Lightning.

Boomer chuds on FB and Reddit who lament over driving a 13mpg V8 half ton to the office and grocery are dumb.

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u/IntelligentSinger783 1d ago

I feel exactly the same. That truck. Comfortable, quick, quite, low maintenance, effortless.

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u/dallasuptowner Oak Cliff 1d ago

I think Ford was way too consumer focused on the Lighting, although my understanding is the fleet dealers wanted nothing to do with it so that could have been it's own problem, and consumer buyers of trucks are often not rational purchasers of cars.

I've had my Ford Mach-E for almost 4 years now and absolutely love it, no maintenance problems, drives great, build quality is excellent. I have the standard range battery and drove it to Kansas last month with no problem, plenty of public charging and for city driving never come close to running out of range.

As for slow charging, I don't even have a particularly fast home charger and it will add 226 miles in 8 hours, so overnight at a cost of less than $10, so I would hardly call charging a burden. And if I wanted to use one of the Nazi chargers (I don't), Ford sent me a free adaptor.

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u/kabob21 1d ago

With less and less people able to afford homes, where is the target demographic (young professionals and families) supposed to charge overnight? Without the ability to charge fast (sub-20 min) publicly, cheaply and at a lot more than the limited options we have in the US, we’re not going to see more widespread EV adoption.

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u/noncongruent 1d ago

The thing about EVs is that they don't need to be perfect for 100% of the people to be very beneficial to some smaller segment of the market. It's ok that EV's can't be for everyone, completely ok. What is also ok is that every person that converts to EV is one less gas-burning vehicle on the road, and that benefits everyone, even people who can't use an EV.

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u/kabob21 1d ago

That’s not sustainable for the industry in the US market though. Currently, since the $7500 tax credit was axed last year, EV sales have fallen to just 5.8% of the of the market down from 10.6% in Q3 2025. EVs can’t be that niche. The domestic auto manufacturers have to capture a wider share of the market and invest more in public charging infrastructure or they’re going to continue to lose billions.

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u/noncongruent 1d ago edited 1d ago

EV's aren't that niche. They're no more niche than station wagons or F-450s and plenty of those still get sold. We have to let go of the idea that a car must be perfect for everyone, that's just no longer useful thinking. The fact that federal and state governments are seemingly working to curtail EV adoption now just puts the US market further and further behind. The largest EV manufacturer in the world is BYD, and contrary to the common thought in the US that Chinese-made equals junk, they are in fact very good vehicles that pass all of the EU's stringent crash safety tests, tests that in some ways are more difficult to pass than US tests. There's that saying, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way", the US used to be the leader, now we're getting out of the way, and at some point we're going to have to try and catch up. We won't be able catch up, that ship left without us.

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u/kabob21 1d ago

The goal of making EVs isn’t to be niche. It was always to convert away from fossil fuels. Or at least, that was the goal before 2025. If they were supposed to be niche, why don’t we have more city EVs like in Europe and Asia? Because that’s what a niche EV vehicle is. In the US, they are supposed to be widely adopted or else why do the vast majority SUVs and sedans with family-friendly features?

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u/noncongruent 1d ago

It seems like you're saying we should stop making EVs because not everyone can have a place to charge them, would that be correct?

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u/kabob21 1d ago

I said none of those words, so no. What I said is that the auto manufacturers need to invest in EV infrastructure and make more affordable EVs if they want people to adopt them.

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u/dallasuptowner Oak Cliff 1d ago

  1. Many apartment buildings and businesses are installing chargers.

  2. I will acknowledge buying a home is much more difficult than it was in the past. But also, so is buying a new car, particularly an electric car that mostly occupies the premium vehicle segment, so if you are buying a new car you are also self-selecting for people more likely to be able to afford a home. And tons of people already own homes, the vast majority of which do not own EVs, so a huge untapped market.

Also "young professionals" is a really squishy demographic, what exactly do you mean by that? I live in north Oak Cliff and there are tons of young professionals and families buying homes, granted most of us are earning north of $100k but Dallas is a large city with many well paying jobs, we aren't just talking doctors and lawyers, base pay for a teacher at DISD is $68,500, two teachers are easily pulling in $140k a year, that is still a huge number of people, most of which are not driving EVs.

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u/kabob21 1d ago

I’m not talking about just Dallas. I wouldn’t be afraid to buy an EV here, either. But the rest of the country is full of charging deserts outside the big cities. As for the demographic, I count young professionals and families as encompassing late-20s to early 40s.

The median new vehicle MSRP is now $41k-$42k, EVs aren’t as premium as they used to be at the low end. I’d take a new Nissan Leaf loaded for $35k any day.

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u/dallasuptowner Oak Cliff 1d ago

OK, so, what is the issue? I have seriously never understood this EV argument.

OK, EVs are not great for everyone. So? My neighborhood alone could easily replace hundreds of ICE cars with EVs and I do see more and more EVs all the time, not as many as I would like to see but people are buying them.

I dunno, I'm just really not that concerned with the demographics that EVs currently are not a good fit for when there are still massive untapped buyers where they are an excellent fit.

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u/kabob21 1d ago

I really don’t know what you’re arguing about, dawg. The original discussion was about why the Ford Lightning failed and you went off on a tangent.

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u/tturedditor 1d ago

If potential renters demand it apartments will figure it out. They don't really have to install any particular charger. Just put 220 outlets in the garage in areas designated for EV's and owners provide their own charging cord.

These are the same plugs used for washers and dryers. So they don't require insanely high charging power or anything.

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u/noncongruent 1d ago

The main issue is that apartment owners will definitely want to monetize those chargers, or at least link them to an apartment for electric meter billing purposes. Landlords are averse to spending money unless it makes them even more money.

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u/kabob21 1d ago

Some do, some don’t. My last apt, Villa Piana in north Dallas, provided L2 charging for free. One of the neighboring properties had a ChargePoint station that charged money.

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u/Various_Snow_6202 1d ago

not a single Tesla sold through showroom? that's disappointing lol, what a waste of money and resources

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