Tesla Shuts Down Its First Showroom In China

Tesla Inc. shut down its flagship showroom in China as it revised its sales and service plans for its second-largest market.

Tesla told Reuters on Wednesday that the store in Beijing's posh Parkview Green shopping mall would be closing. It claimed to have moved the store to the Raffles City shopping centre. Mid-October saw the opening of that showroom, which is less spacious than the old two-floor showroom in Parkview Green.

For the record, the Beijing store, opened in 2013, was Tesla's first in China. It was renovated in 2018 and expanded to occupy two floors of the mall.

More than 200 locations are owned and operated by Tesla across the nation, where models are on display and test drives are arranged for prospective customers.

After traffic fell off during COVID restrictions, Reuters reported in September that Tesla was considering closing several dealerships in glitzy malls in places like Beijing.

As the business strives to achieve CEO Elon Musk's objective of enhancing customer service, it also intends to place more emphasis on storefronts in less expensive suburban sites that can also perform repairs.

Tesla has been filling service positions in China with technicians and other workers as part of that endeavour. As of Wednesday, there were still 305 service job positions listed on the company's Chinese recruitment website.

In response to signals of decreasing demand in the largest auto market in the world, Tesla has reduced the starting costs for its Model 3 and Model Y cars in China by as much as 9%, reversing a trend of price increases throughout the industry.

According to the China Passenger Car Association, Tesla sold 318,151 vehicles in China in the first nine months of 2022, increasing 55% from the same period in the previous year. In contrast, hybrid and electric car sales rose 113.2 percent overall.