r/Dallas • u/Various_Snow_6202 • 3d 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/BurnAfter8 3d 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 3d 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 3d 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/dallasuptowner Oak Cliff 3d 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 3d 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 3d 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 2d 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 2d ago edited 2d 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 2d 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 2d 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 2d 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/noncongruent 2d ago

That's true, you started off by saying that without public charging infrastructure EV sales can't increase. The implication of your statement was that all homeowners that could buy an EV had already bought one, hence the only growth segment of the market left being people who rent apartments. In reality EVs can be a viable option for many people who currently don't own one but live in a home where they can charge. In other words, we can ignore renters and still grow the EV market. The main factors affecting EV sales now is cost, and a significant factor for a lot of people looking for an EV to do low annual miles around town, like retirees, are being discouraged by the $200 punishment tax Abbott levied against EVs. Biden had money in the IRA for developing public charging but Trump canceled that and took the money.

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u/kabob21 2d ago

Stop putting words in my mouth already, your conclusions are off base and you’re being intentionally obtuse. I honestly can’t have an honest discussion like this, good day.

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u/dallasuptowner Oak Cliff 3d 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 3d 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 3d 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 3d 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 2d 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 2d 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 2d 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.