Tesla Plans To Keep More Stores Open Than Expected

Amid plans to scale back its brick-and-mortar footprint, Tesla announced it intends to have more locations stay open than it had planned. At the same time, the company plans to increase the price of many of its vehicles by roughly 3 percent globally, The New York Times reported.

“Over the past two weeks we have been closely evaluating every single Tesla retail location, and we have decided to keep significantly more stores open than previously announced as we continue to evaluate them over the course of several months,” Tesla wrote in a blog post. In addition, the company noted it had already closed 10 percent of its locations that didn’t bring in the “natural foot traffic” for which its stores had been intended. “These are stores that we would have closed anyway, even if in-store sales made up our entire sales model,” the company wrote.

At the same time, Tesla wrote that it is reviewing an additional 20 percent of locations. The company said that some will stay open and some will be shuttered, “depending on their effectiveness over the next few months.” Because it is planning to keep more stores open, the company said it needed to raise the prices of its vehicles by roughly 3 percent globally. However, the company said the increases will apply to the Model X, the Model S and the more expensive versions of the company’s Model 3.

The news comes after Tesla announced earlier this month its move to an online-only sales model. The company’s CEO, Elon Musk, said the move would lower costs and enable the Model 3 to arrive on the market. Tesla had predicted that the move could let the company lower vehicle prices by about 6 percent.

It also noted that the move would enable it to “achieve the $35,000 Model 3 price point earlier than we expected.” According to reports at the time, it wasn’t known how many Tesla stores would remain open. At the same time, it was reported that the company was seeking to make its process for deposit refunds more streamlined.