Tesla plans to open a showroom on a Dallas street where rival EV maker Rivian already operates, according to a state filing reported on Friday by the Dallas Morning News.
The company would build a roughly 2,500-square-foot showroom at 3113 Knox Street, based on a filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, the newspaper said.
Construction is set to begin in August, though the filing lists its details as preliminary and subject to change.
The site would sit within a short walk of Rivian, whose Dallas “Space” opened at 3010 Knox Street in January 2025 and lets visitors view the R1T pickup and R1S SUV and book test drives.
The location was Rivian‘s second Space in Texas, after Austin, and the company pairs it with a separate service-and-demo centre in the area.
For Tesla, the move would mark a relocation rather than an expansion. The company has exited a spot at nearby NorthPark Center, according to the local outlet, and operates other sites in the region, including in Plano and Flower Mound.
The company opened its first Dallas gallery at the Galleria mall in 2019.
Showrooms, not dealerships
Both companies run showrooms rather than dealerships in Texas, which bars manufacturers from selling vehicles directly to consumers.
Staff can display the cars but cannot discuss price or complete a sale on site, and buyers order online or out of state.
A separate Texas measure, House Bill 718, took effect on July 1, 2025, but it concerns vehicle registration and the end of temporary paper licence tags rather than the direct-sales ban, which remains in force. Tesla pioneered the company-store model in the US, and Rivian has followed it, favouring showcase spaces and service centres over franchised dealers.
Texas is central to both companies. Tesla assembles the Model Y and Cybertruck at its Austin plant, while Rivian builds its vehicles in Illinois and has been steadily expanding its Texas sales and service network.
Rivian’s Texas build-out
Rivian has established a deeper footprint across North Texas over the past two years.
The brand runs four service centres in the state — in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston — with three more in development, part of a national network of 97 service locations and 36 showrooms at the end of 2025.
Rivian ended the year just short of a target of 100 service sites and operated nearly 700 mobile service vehicles.
The company converted a former Tesla site in Fort Worth, at 275 University Drive, into a service-and-demo centre for about $1.4 million, and is building a $9.5 million service-and-sales facility in Round Rock, north of Austin.
It is also investing about $10 million in a parts distribution hub in Fort Worth, a 552,000-square-foot centre due for completion in November. In June, a Texas finance company took what it called the first non-Amazon Rivian van in Dallas.
Much of the expansion is tied to the R2, Rivian’s smaller SUV, which entered volume production in April and starts around $45,000, below its R1 models. Rivian is counting on the model to broaden its customer base as it works toward profitability.
A cooling market
US EV sales rose in the second quarter from the first but were down from a year earlier, according to Cox Automotive.
The sequential gain against a year-on-year decline points to a market growing more slowly than during the industry’s earlier boom, leaving brands to compete harder for buyers.
Both companies are leaning on physical retail to court them as growth cools, letting shoppers see and test the vehicles before ordering online.
