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Tesla’s retail strategy set to change for the third time in three years
Tesla is set to change its retail strategy for the third time in three years. The automaker has relied on retail showrooms in shopping malls in high-end locations, but this is set to change. Additionally, Tesla may be remotely managing test drives and deliveries, moving to a more virtual setup instead of spending money on expensive real estate inside shopping centers.
The plan is somewhat similar to the early 2019 plan that CEO Elon Musk talked about during a press call in February of that year. After concerns that some employees would be relieved of their duties due to store closures, Musk indicated that there would be a reduction in headcount. Tesla eventually backtracked on this strategy, and more retail locations were opened throughout 2020.
However, the 2021 plan is much different and extends a refined focus on keeping Tesla’s employee headcount the same while eliminating some expensive retail locations. In 2018, Tesla committed to opening more showroom locations inside high-end malls that provided more foot traffic.
Credit: @JustJay25122288 | Twitter
Now, for the third time in three years, Tesla is revising its plan for showrooms and retail locations alike, with plans to close the sales centers in the high-end mall locations, according to Electrek.
According to the report, Tesla is now planning to cut ties with the high-end locations due to rent obligations, which are likely high and unrewarding. Instead, delivery centers will take a bigger focus as an overwhelming number of Tesla owners placed their orders online. Because of this, test drives are also being handled remotely, a strategy that was loosely adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic to eliminate human contact. The test drive experience is one of the most pleasant available due to the lack of sales pressure from a salesperson.
Employees will no longer be assigned to a store. Instead, they will be assigned to a “central virtual store” and will assist online buyers in specific markets. This will eliminate the need for Tesla to let go of employees, keeping the workforce the same but eliminating the costs of leasing a retail space.
The retail locations won’t go away altogether, however. Tesla is reportedly still planning to keep showroom locations open if they are affordable and reasonable. It seems that the expensive rent in high-end facilities is just not justified, even though the company is financially stable, unlike in 2019 when the Model 3 was still giving Tesla some financial bottlenecks as the company ramped deliveries in Europe.
These high-end showroom locations will likely dissipate slowly over the next few years as leases expire. It is unknown what the financial threshold is to consider a location to be a financial disadvantage. However, the money Tesla can reserve can be spent on product development or the expansion of Delivery and Service Centers through the next several years. As Tesla continues to expand its market and demand increases steadily, Delivery and Service Centers will take the forefront. Showroom locations will slowly become less important, especially due to the advantageous nature of ordering a vehicle online.
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Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor is proving to be a difficult task, according to some riders who made the journey to Austin to attempt to ride in one of its vehicles that has zero supervision.
Last week, Tesla officially removed Safety Monitors from some — not all — of its Robotaxi vehicles in Austin, Texas, answering skeptics who said the vehicles still needed supervision to operate safely and efficiently.
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Tesla aimed to remove Safety Monitors before the end of 2025, and it did, but only to company employees. It made the move last week to open the rides to the public, just a couple of weeks late to its original goal, but the accomplishment was impressive, nonetheless.
However, the small number of Robotaxis that are operating without Safety Monitors has proven difficult to hail for a ride. David Moss, who has gained notoriety recently as the person who has traveled over 10,000 miles in his Tesla on Full Self-Driving v14 without any interventions, made it to Austin last week.
He has tried to get a ride in a Safety Monitor-less Robotaxi for the better part of four days, and after 38 attempts, he still has yet to grab one:
Wow just wow!
It’s 8:30PM, 29° out ice storm hailing & Tesla Robotaxi service has turned back on!
Waymo is offline & vast majority of humans are home in the storm
Ride 38 was still supervised but by far most impressive yet pic.twitter.com/1aUnJkcYm8
— David Moss (@DavidMoss) January 25, 2026
Tesla said last week that it was rolling out a controlled test of the Safety Monitor-less Robotaxis. Ashok Elluswamy, who heads the AI program at Tesla, confirmed that the company was “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader Robotaxi fleet with Safety Monitors,” and that “the ratio will increase over time.”
This is a good strategy that prioritizes safety and keeps the company’s controlled rollout at the forefront of the Robotaxi rollout.
However, it will be interesting to see how quickly the company can scale these completely monitor-less rides. It has proven to be extremely difficult to get one, but that is understandable considering only a handful of the cars in the entire Austin fleet are operating with no supervision within the vehicle.
Tesla has given its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent, as a new feature seems to show that the company is preparing for frequent border crossings.
Tesla owner and influencer BLKMDL3, also known as Zack, recently took his Tesla to the border of California and Mexico at Tijuana, and at the international crossing, Full Self-Driving showed an interesting message: “Upcoming country border — FSD (Supervised) will become unavailable.”
FSD now shows a new message when approaching an international border crossing.
Stayed engaged the whole way as we crossed the border and worked great in Mexico! pic.twitter.com/bDzyLnyq0g
— Zack (@BLKMDL3) January 26, 2026
Due to regulatory approvals, once a Tesla operating on Full Self-Driving enters a new country, it is required to comply with the laws and regulations that are applicable to that territory. Even if legal, it seems Tesla will shut off FSD temporarily, confirming it is in a location where operation is approved.
This is something that will be extremely important in Europe, as crossing borders there is like crossing states in the U.S.; it’s pretty frequent compared to life in America, Canada, and Mexico.
Tesla has been working to get FSD approved in Europe for several years, and it has been getting close to being able to offer it to owners on the continent. However, it is still working through a lot of the red tape that is necessary for European regulators to approve use of the system on their continent.
This feature seems to be one that would be extremely useful in Europe, considering the fact that crossing borders into other countries is much more frequent than here in the U.S., and would cater to an area where approvals would differ.
Tesla has been testing FSD in Spain, France, England, and other European countries, and plans to continue expanding this effort. European owners have been fighting for a very long time to utilize the functionality, but the red tape has been the biggest bottleneck in the process.
Tesla Europe builds momentum with expanding FSD demos and regional launches
Tesla operates Full Self-Driving in the United States, China, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship V3 gets launch date update from Elon Musk
The first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX’s next Starship launch, Flight 12, is expected in about six weeks. This suggests that the first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
In a post on X, Elon Musk stated that the next Starship launch is in six weeks. He accompanied his announcement with a photo that seemed to have been taken when Starship’s upper stage was just about to separate from the Super Heavy Booster. Musk did not state whether SpaceX will attempt to catch the Super Heavy Booster during the upcoming flight.
The upcoming flight will mark the debut of Starship V3. The upgraded design includes the new Raptor V3 engine, which is expected to have nearly twice the thrust of the original Raptor 1, at a fraction of the cost and with significantly reduced weight. The Starship V3 platform is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability.
The Starship V3 Flight 12 launch timeline comes as SpaceX pursues an aggressive development cadence for the fully reusable launch system. Previous iterations of Starship have racked up a mixed but notable string of test flights, including multiple integrated flight tests in 2025.
Interestingly enough, SpaceX has teased an aggressive timeframe for Starship V3’s first flight. Way back in late November, SpaceX noted on X that it will be aiming to launch Starship V3’s maiden flight in the first quarter of 2026. This was despite setbacks like a structural anomaly on the first V3 booster during ground testing.
“Starship’s twelfth flight test remains targeted for the first quarter of 2026,” the company wrote in its post on X.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor proves to be difficult
Tesla gives its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent
