Tesla to build its largest service facility in North America in Vancouver

Artistic rendering of the new Tesla facility at 950 Raymur Avenue, Vancouver. (Beedie/Tesla)

North America’s largest purpose-built Tesla service facility will be constructed in Vancouver’s Strathcona district.

The battery-electric car manufacturer announced today it has partnered with local developer Beedie to build the facility at 950 Raymur Avenue, which is a 1.6-acre vacant industrial site at the southeast corner of Prior Street and Raymur Avenue — immediately east of Strathcona Park.

The new state-of-the-art 120,000 sq ft building complex will provide servicing, vehicle preparation, delivery operations, and a showroom. According to Tesla, this will be the company’s most expansive service centre with the largest service capacity in Western Canada.

You might also like:

“We are pleased to have partnered with Beedie to build our future flagship British Columbia location in the heart of Vancouver. With this new facility we look to better serve our Vancouver-area customers and further support electric vehicle adoption in the province,” said Fereshteh Zeineddin, Tesla’s director of vehicle sales and service in Canada, in a statement.

Ryan Beedie, the president of Beedie, added, “At Beedie we are committed to building legacies for our vibrant communities, so the opportunity to support the transition to electric vehicles through this partnership with Tesla is exciting. We have often collaborated with innovative companies on unique, built-to-suit projects and we look forward to working closely with Tesla and the local community in the coming years.”

Site of the new Tesla facility at 950 Raymur Avenue, Vancouver. (Google Maps)

Artistic rendering of the new Tesla facility at 950 Raymur Avenue, Vancouver. (Beedie/Tesla)

Construction is expected to begin in early 2024 for completion in early 2026.

The Tesla facility aligns with the City of Vancouver’s False Creek Plan for intensifying industrial and other employment-generating uses in the area.

This site is also immediately adjacent to the CN railway leading to the port, with the municipal government carrying long-term plans to build a fully grade-separated Prior Street road underpass below the railway to improve traffic flow.

When complete, the new purpose-built Tesla facility is expected to replace the nearby existing service centre within an industrial building at 901 Great Northern Way.

Tesla also has a partnership with Bosa Properties to build a new purpose-built delivery and service centre at a vacant 7.5-acre site at 1032 Nicola Avenue in Port Coquitlam. It will be a 60,000 sq ft facility with vehicle parking capacity for about 650 stalls.

tesla deliery service centre 1032 nicola avenue port coquitlam

Artistic rendering of the Tesla facility at 1032 Nicola Avenue, Port Coquitlam. (Christopher Boyzyk Architects/Bosa Properties/Tesla)

Layout of the Tesla facility at 1032 Nicola Avenue, Port Coquitlam. (Christopher Boyzyk Architects/Bosa Properties/Tesla)

The company is making big inroads into Metro Vancouver as it has some of North America’s highest rates of battery-electric vehicle adoption.

ICBC statistics show a total of 30,533 Tesla vehicles were registered within the Lower Mainland in 2022, including 9,044 within Vancouver. In steep contrast, in 2018, there were 4,319 Tesla vehicles registered across the Lower Mainland, including 1,578 in Vancouver.

According to the provincial government, 18% of new light-duty passenger vehicle sales in BC in 2022 were zero-emission models, which are overwhelmingly dominated by battery-electric vehicles.

Over the first nine months of 2023, battery-electric vehicles have accounted for about 21% of all such new vehicle sales, which is the highest for any provincial/territorial jurisdiction in Canada.

The provincial government has a legislated target to reach 100% zero-emission sales for new light-duty passenger vehicles by 2035, with interim targets of 26% by 2026 and 90% by 2030.

You might also like: