Tesla closes high-tech Ponsonby store

Wednesday, 15 May 2024

Tesla’s Karangahape Road store is no more, as of Monday this week.

Five years ago, Tesla opened its first New Zealand store — an advanced, bespoke, multi-storey site on Karangahape Road in Ponsonby. Five years on, and the brand has moved out.

Having notified Tesla owners in advance, the brand closed the site’s doors for the last time on Monday, May 13.

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Signs left on the store’s windows indicated that the brand is “relocating” to its recently completed Auckland South facility in Māngere on Kirkbride Road, adding that “all sales and service departments will continue from our new site”.

Tesla representatives boasted at the Māngere location’s launch about the site’s potential to host new customers from Hamilton, and the site’s low-energy focus — solar panels and Tesla Powerwall units helping keep its emissions down.

Brand representatives didn’t, however, detail that the new site was set to act as a replacement for Tesla’s store in the CBD.

The letter Tesla left on the doors of its Ponsonby site.

A Tesla Australia & New Zealand representative told Stuff that the brand elected to move out of the Ponsonby site because it had outgrown its capacity, with the Tesla Auckland South location offering an all-in-one solution.

Opened in June 2018, Tesla’s Ponsonby Store incorporated a retail facility, design studio, delivery bays, service centre, and an underground Supercharger area for Tesla owners wanting to charge their vehicles.

Tesla does not expect as many customers to flock to its Auckland South site regularly, due to its reduced Supercharger count.

One of the largest Tesla stores in the world, its build earned construction firm Naylor Love a ‘Silver’ nod at the New Zealand Commercial Project Awards in 2019, in the Heritage/Restoration category.

Meanwhile, the replacement 28,780 square metre Auckland South site opened in July 2023, boasting a service centre, parts centre, customer delivery, office space, and more.

Whilst it sits on a larger site, Tesla Auckland South boasts less public charging facilities for Tesla owners whilst also being less central. Conversely, it also likely comes with less property costs than a central site in Ponsonby.

Whilst Tesla’s number of active stores from four down to three (it also has sites in Wellington and Christchurch), the number will soon become four again with the planned opening of a new store still under construction in Westgate.