Tesla Motors is expanding to New York City -- not with a flashy showroom in Manhattan, but with a brick-and-mortar sales and service center in Brooklyn.
The new Tesla location opening Friday in Red Hook is not the kind of place where you can leave with the keys to your new Model S in hand, but it’s a big move for Tesla and makes its electric cars more accessible to the biggest city in the country.
Learn about Tesla cars
If you’re interested in learning more about Tesla cars, the Red Hook store is the perfect place to start. The glass double doors on 160 Van Brunt St. open right into a showroom with two Model S cars and an undercarriage on display -- not something that’s featured in most car stores.
But it’s a necessary component of a Tesla sales center, where people can come if they’re curious about what exactly makes a Tesla car a Tesla car. You can take a look at the battery that makes up the entire base of the car and see the two motors that power the all-wheel-drive models.
Not only that, but you can test drive a Model S right out of the store. Nothing tells you more about a car than taking it for a spin, and experiencing that autopilot feature for yourself is more informative than reading about it online.
Build your own Tesla
While you can’t purchase and drive off in a Tesla at the new Brooklyn store, you can fully customize and order your own. Potential customers can select paint jobs, interiors and more on touchscreen displays and see how much it will cost. From there, you can send your order off to California and expect a Tesla to show up at your doorstep in six to eight weeks. Alternatively, you can email the build to yourself to think about it a little longer.
Bring your Tesla in for service
Along with the education-centered showroom is a massive service center, which eventually will be able to service thousands of cars.
Previously, the closest location to New York City for servicing a Tesla was in Mount Kisco more than 40 miles away. Although Tesla offers free car pick-up to any owners within 500 miles of a service center, that’s not exactly the most convenient way to get your tires rotated.
Why Tesla picked Brooklyn
New York City is a strong market for Tesla -- especially Brooklyn -- and Brooklyn is the easiest place to find 25,000 square feet of space.
Brooklyn is also a more family-oriented borough. With Tesla’s safety ratings being among the highest of any car ever made, the cars are a very attractive option for young families looking for safe transportation. The Red Hook location in particular has seen a lot of construction and revamping recently, which points to that area becoming a more popular destination for young families in the near future.
By being right next to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, it also isn’t too inconvenient for people who live in Manhattan to make the trip down.
And let’s not ignore the comparable absence of traffic in Red Hook, which will allow you to test out a Model S without getting caught trying to merge through three lanes of midday congestion.
What this means for New York City
Tesla’s new store won’t have a huge impact on the borough, although the company is employing about 30 locals for the store.
For all of New York City, Tesla has partnered with more than 100 public garages that will fill up your Tesla’s battery while it’s stored, so you don’t have to worry about finding places to plug in if you don’t have your own garage.
Tesla has also partnered with Luxe, a parking service that will pick up your Tesla wherever you park it on the street, charge it up, and bring it back.