Tesla is the Apple of clean transportation

Just Like Apple, Tesla Goes To The Mall
[Via Cult of Mac]

The future neighbor to your local mall’s Apple Store.

GIGAOM ROADMAP, SAN FRANCISCO — Back in 2000, no one wanted to buy Apple’s products. Steve Jobs realized that potential customers needed to see and play with Apple’s offerings before they could be persuaded to buy them. So he launched a chain of retail stores in malls across the country. It was risky, but it paid off handsomely.

Now Tesla, the electric car maker run by Elon Musk, is trying to do the same thing. Instead of a traditional dealership, Tesla is building a chain of car showrooms right inside shopping malls.

To build out the chain, Tesla tapped George Blankenship, Apple’s former Vice President of Real Estate, who helped to roll out Steve Jobs’ mega-successful chain.

Speaking at an afternoon session, Blankenship said the mall dealerships are proving irresistable to shoppers:

“They come in because there’s a car in there,” he said onstage at the Roadmap conference, “and then we’ve got them.”

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Just as Apple reimagined retail sales as it remade itself into a powerhouse, we now see Tesla following the same path.

Sales in new spaces. And Tesla is building out free solar-powered charging stations for their Teslas. Get a charge in 30 minutes while you get something to eat.

Now you can get from LA to SF with these stations. If they blanket the states in two years, watch out.