This not not a ghost lot. It seems to be filled with Teslas with front end damage. Since Tesla's all look the same to me I can't tell if these are older Tesla's before autopilot. Even still, it seems like a lot of cars with front end damage. There are only about 55 cars. But they are parked on one of those "wework" sites. So...... maybe they are teaching people how to fix them? You wouldn't need that may cars if this was a mechanic school, right? Just one of each type.
Some of the cars had license plates. A couple look like they've never gotten out of the factory plastic. Maybe they were injured in transit. All I know is it looks like they have been there a while.
Maybe there's a Tesla insurance program that instead of fixing up your beaten-up Tesla, you get ... A NEW CAR! :-)
ReplyDeleteWell.... that would really keep his sales numbers up.
ReplyDeleteI drove around a not-quite-deadmall today and I noticed something interesting around one of the deadmall's missing anchors ...
ReplyDeleteThe parking lot around it was nearly completely full of new cars.
I'd actually watched a double stack car carrier drop off new cars at another not-quite-deadmall a few weeks ago. At the time, I wondered why this was happening because it was still within typical dealership operating hours. That not-quite-deadmall has two missing anchors.
Twenty years ago, both areas were on the way up.
The area around today's not-quite-deadmall numero uno is full of dead vehicle dealerships, dead movie theaters, dead expansion full of dead restaurant spots, MIA but not forgotten travel agents, and so on.
Nobody's going to notice a bunch of cars parked on the back side of a long-gone Macy's or Sears. Who goes looking around the parking lots of not-quite-deadmalls except for people who don't remember where the main entrance should be?
Well, me, actually. I thought I'd take a closer look when I noticed that what used to be the biggest mall in three counties doesn't seem to give a crap about mowing the grass around its outer circular road.
What if the plan is to "part out" all of these slightly busted-up Teslas?
I saw a video where some guys in California were having a blast disassembling a battery pack from a Tesla S. Apparently the cells in these things are super powerful and can be used in things like whole-home backup power systems.
Offering these things at cut-rate prices would be like offering free gasoline to motorhead nerds. A few kW of compact battery packs that outperform something like a GoalZero backup power unit, or that could be integrated into it? OH HELL YES PLZ. :-)
And yes, it'd boost Tesla's numbers, because they could say that they produced X units and sold most of them, when in actuality they've sold X/4 at retail, X/2 as "dealer warranty" replacements, and X/4 as direct-to-disassembly rolling part shops. So yeah, get one beat up in an accident, maybe they'll just give you another if you shut up about it. It's probably in the fine print.
Anyway, I didn't get pictures because by the time I got done doing my business near the not-quite-deadmall, it was nearly dark. But I figure that there are plenty of not-quite-deadmalls full of "permanent shoppers", and I don't mean the retired people who show up as mallwalkers ...
This happens probably not so much in your area because it seems that you have a crazy housing shortage and malls are considered recyclable materials, but in this neck of the woods, they're still in the phase where they're moving Future Debt Collection Universities into bits and pieces of them. (Historically Bankrupt Colleges and Universities actually have real estate they can sell, although there a deadcollege in Knoxville that's on a Chernobyl level of spooky, and nobody seems to want it.)
What would make this carpocalypse wandering interesting would be a VIN scanner and unlimited vehicle database searches ... :-)
No way! They took my idea. Which types of cars were they storing?
ReplyDeleteOddly I think your experience with the mall is exactly why old timey malls are failing. No one wants to find the entrance to a mall. Then go inside and look at the kiosk to find the store they are looking for. We all want to roll up to the store we want to shop at and not go for a mile long hike to get there. Judging by the fitness level of most old people these days some can barely make it from a tiny parking lot right into a store.
It's interesting what you say about the Tesla's. But that just doesn't make sense either. Why poach the expensive batteries of a Tesla when you can get a Generac for about 2 grand? The VIN scanner portion is super interesting though. I've been trying to stay well back from these cars because I assume there are cameras everywhere even if I don't see them. But that is an interesting idea.
I don't know that malls are so much recyclable here. To be sure... this transformation doesn't happen over night. In my grandfathers generation this area was nothing but orchards, so I only assume by the time I'm old, this place will be super built up. But in Fremont Ca for example there is an old Taco Bell-ish building that has been sitting there for probably 10 years. In a good neighborhood and I can't figure out why someone hasn't snapped it up. And that's not even a whole mall. I can only guess the government is somehow involved. Maybe it has asbestos. Or lead paint or some other kind of crap that makes it expensive to get rid of.
The ones at not-quite-deadmall numero dos a few weeks ago were either Toyota or Lexus cars -- I can't really tell the difference between many of them at a distance.
ReplyDeleteI was more worried about my own vehicle -- this mall used to be nice, but it's pretty sketchy these days.
As far as the batteries on these Teslas go, if the cars have been written off somehow, such as in an accident, then the parts may be more or less free money for whoever owns them at that point. The batteries aren't nearly as expensive if the car's been valued as a total loss, and that's why those salvage people were happy to be able to tear apart a Tesla battery assembly.
Oh, yeah, this we have to do now -- it's David Byrne's "Nothing But Flowers". :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOEIRI5HSuQ
"There was a shopping mall, now it's all covered with flowers ..."
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ReplyDelete