Electric car company unveils first Oregon location

TIGARD — Washington Square mall is known for its department stores, jewelry shops and restaurants, but starting today the mall will be home to something no one ever expected: A car dealership.

Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley-based car company known for its long-range electric sports cars,, is opening its first Oregon car dealership at the mall on Friday, Washington Square officials announced last week, with its Model S luxury sedan on display.

“We put our stores in places where people aren’t necessarily thinking about buying a car,” said Shanna Hendriks, a spokeswoman for Tesla. “We want to educate folks who come in about driving electric, inform them about Tesla and engage them about what it is like to drive an electric car and the Model S that we have.”

The Tigard store is the latest in a string of recent openings for Tesla, and the 16th store nationwide.

Located near Nordstrom, the mall’s newest retailer isn’t about the hard sell, and customers won’t be able to drive one off the lot that day.

Staff at the store will be on hand mainly to answer questions through touch-screen presentations and arrange test drives. Customers can customize their car and reserve a car online.

A car purchased today won’t be available until well into next year.

A basic Model S will cost about $49,000, after a $7,500 federal tax credit for buying an electric car.

With all the bells and whistles, the Model S could cost more than $101,000.

Hendriks said Tesla plans to sell 5,000 of the Model S sedans globally this year, and up to 20,000 in 2013.

As for how many of those are expected in the Portland area, Hendriks wouldn’t say, adding that Tesla doesn’t disclose the number of reservations it already has on the car in the Portland area.

“While we don’t talk about it, you can kind of guess how many, based on where we put our stores and service centers.”

This the third Tesla facility in the Northwest. Tesla operates a similar showroom in Bellevue, Wash., and a service center in Seattle.

First announced in 2008, the cars only started shipping to customers about a month ago.

Hendriks said the company received about 10,000 reservations for the new cars in that time, without anyone ever seeing one in person.

“We did that 10,000 with nobody even test driving the car,” Hendriks said.

If you’re planning on getting behind the wheel of a Model S for a test drive, you might be disappointed.

Only people who have made a $5,000 deposit on one of the new sedans will be able to take one out for a spin, Hendrix said.

“We are looking at our reservation list of folks as people who are going to be one day taking delivery of Model S,” Hendriks said.

Once you have reserved a car of your own, you’ll be able to schedule a time to take a test drive.

Cars are currently on the road doing test drives with the 10,000 owners who had reserved a car over the last few years, Hendriks said, but cars will be on hand at the Washington Square location for local test drives likely beginning in the fall.

Along with the Model S, customers can also pre-order the not-yet-finished Model X crossover, expected to hit the streets in 2014. Costs for a Model X are expected to start at $60,000.

Hendriks said special charging stations will be installed at Washington Square for Tesla customers. The custom-made charging stations are free for Tesla customers to charge their cars, Hendriks said.

A full charge at the charging stations will likely take about two hours, Hendriks said.