Tesla’s showroom is a different dealership compared to other brands. Currently Tesla has two showrooms in Beijing and Shanghai and they are building a third showroom in Xi’an. The showroom is used to showcase Tesla’s cars and to assist customers into ordering vehicles online. The idea is to involve the customer into understanding how the Model S works and explain differences compared to a normal combustion based car. The sales people are not trained to push the customer into buying a car, but it is more focused on educating them about advantages of owning a Tesla. One of the biggest questions that sales representatives receive, is the number of charging stations and the battery performance. By having trained staff, they can easily explain the battery performance and the number of the current Supercharger stations and upcoming ones. Showrooms act as a fundamental intermediary to inform customers and allow customers to buy their Tesla.

For our market research, we visited a showroom in China. We went to Tesla’s showroom in Shanghai, to see if they offer the service they promise. The showroom is located at the intersection of two crowded streets. The front of the shop exists of glass panels to see the Tesla car from outside. Inside the showroom, there was one Model S with full options, worth 1.000.000 RMB. The frame of the Model S that will also be used for the Model X was in the showroom as well. The back of the shop was filled with personalization packages for creating your own Tesla.

The salesperson spoke English and was a qualified representative for Tesla. He did not push sales but was keeping himself accessible for customers and gave information that was requested. This concurs well with what we expected after reading about Tesla’s showroom experience.

Concluding, we have experienced the full Tesla service in their showroom. The showroom in Shanghai is not based in the city center of Shanghai, but it is located in a wealthier neighborhood where there is a mixed group of expats and wealthier Chinese. In Beijing the showroom is based in the city center in a fancy shopping mall.