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See it refurbished, then take it home: used Teslas will be serviced to current standard then sold in the same facility—a company first. Company and county officials cut the ribbon on the Kissimmee facility Monday. PHOTO/KEN JACKSON
First generation Tesla cars are coming to the time in their lifespan when it’s time to trade them in, or leases are expiring.
Many of those will now come to a new facility on the north side of Kissimmee on Orange Blossom Trail near Osceola Parkway to be refurbished and sold as used cars.
The Tesla Used Car Center is bringing 120 jobs to Kissimmee and Osceola County, company officials said at a Monday ribbon-cutting for the 57,000-square foot facility that will include fabrication and sales.
Much like how the Tesla vehicle was an experiment when the first-generation Tesla Roadster debuted in 2008, the Kissimmee facility is an experiment, said Luvelle Starling, Director of Sales, Service and Delivery for Florida and Puerto Rico, on Monday.
“This is the first used-car focused Tesla dealership, with the goal being to refurbish them in order for us to provide great-quality used Teslas,” he said. “This will be a test site to see if we can recondition and sell in the same location. Typically, we used to recondition all over the country and ship into stores. We’re trying to centralize that in Central Florida so we have one location that does all the reconditioning.”
Some of those reconditioned cars will go to other locations, but Starling said the company’s plan is to keep them here and have the buyers come to Kissimmee. We’ve been trying to get into this area for a long time.”
“Customers will be able to see the cars before they purchase them,” he said. “(The first wave of Tesla buyers) were not able to buy them out of their leases, so we’re hoping to get them into these.”
The company expected operations to be in full force by the end of this week.
Tesla still offers six vehicle models: the Model S, Model X, Model 3, Model Y, Tesla Semi, and Cybertruck.
