Watch: Tesla's NZ footprint continues to grow, huge new site opens

Monday, 31 July 2023

Tesla opened its fourth store in New Zealand over the weekend, located in Māngere.

Over the weekend on July 30, Tesla officially opened the doors to its second store in Auckland and just its fourth store in all of New Zealand; Tesla Auckland South in Māngere.

The 28,780 square meter site includes a showroom, two lounges (one for delivery customers and one for service customers), office space, customer delivery, a service centre, and a parts centre. The brand is also planning to open a crash repairs centre in the near future.

Tesla has opened the doors to its second store in Auckland, featuring a huge car delivery area, parts area, and service center.

The service centre has 16 hoists, and was already being used to service various Teslas prior to the site’s official launch. The site has the capacity to deliver up to 60–80 new vehicles to customers every day – a handy party trick given the brand’s ongoing rapid sales expansion.

The brand believes that the new store’s location will help with luring in customers and owners from Hamilton. Its position close to Auckland Airport could help with attracting customers from even further afield, too.

The new dealership wasn’t designed in the same way as Tesla’s Ponsonby site, which was built to attract customers wanting to relax and socialise.

Whilst the site features a handful of public chargers, Tesla believes Auckland South isn’t going to attract congregations of Tesla owners due to its location. This is at odds with the brand’s site on Karangahape Road, which is designed to attract Tesla customers wanting to relax and socialise with other Tesla owners.

The new site arrives as Tesla’s local momentum continues to grow. Year-to-date, Tesla is the most popular EV seller in New Zealand, and seventh overall in passenger car sales behind MG, Suzuki, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Kia, and Toyota.

A fleet of Model 3 and Model Y testers is on-site for those interested in having a go.

Tesla’s reasonably sluggish expansion in New Zealand (having first arrived here in mid-2018) can, in part, be put down to the brand’s focus on online sales, with many of its buyers preferring buying its cars online over seeing them in person and test-driving them first.

It’s unlikely a Cybertruck will take one of these places (at least, one you can buy), but it’s not entirely out of the question.

Nevertheless, those who insist on driving a Tesla before they buy one can do exactly that at Tesla Auckland South via its fleet of test-drive Model 3s and Model Ys.

The new building was built with reduced emissions in mind. Solar panels on its roof help provide power for three Tesla Powerwall units, which contribute to running the site’s electricity. Tesla could not confirm how much of the factory’s power comes from the Powerwall.

Despite being the country’s biggest EV brand, Tesla has just four stores running around New Zealand; two in Auckland, one in Wellington, and one in Christchurch. The brand has always prided itself on its online-focused sales model – a model that other brands have started to emulate.

Having phased the Model S and Model X out of production, Tesla currently only offers two models; the Model 3 sedan and the Model Y SUV. Barring the Cybertruck, which is unlikely to be sold Down Under as it currently doesn’t meet ADR (Australian Design Rules) standards, the next Tesla that we’re expecting to see the line-up gain a more affordable electric hatchback.

At 2023’s halfway point, Tesla was the most popular EV manufacturer in the country; its 2,568 registrations between January and June made it the seventh most popular passenger car brand outright behind MG, Suzuki, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Kia, and Toyota.

Tesla is on target to equal its positional result from 2022, where it ended the year in seventh. But, its sales output has been less strong. If it repeats its registration figures from the first half of the year in the second half, it will end the year 36% behind its 2022 exploits.