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Read All Latest NewsLangford Gets Island’s First Tesla Centre, RCMP’s First EV Cruiser
Langford will officially become the first Vancouver Island home of a Tesla service centre over the next year.
At a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday morning (March 3), Mayor Stew Young announced the 35,000-square-foot building is set to begin construction on March 11, and be open for business by June 2023 on City Gate Boulevard.
“This is a big day for Langford with all the different things that are going on in the world, like climate change, that we need to address,” said Young. “What a better way to showcase Tesla, to showcase electric vehicles than to actually have a Tesla centre where they will fix your cars, you can order cars and collect your cars where you used to have to go over to Vancouver.”
The new facility is expected to have as many as 50 full-time jobs once complete, and in its first year of operations will inject approximately $295,000 into Langford through taxes.
While the new Tesla centre was the main announcement Thursday, Young also announced the RCMP’s first-ever electric police car is set to arrive on the West Shore later this year.
The Tesla Model Y will be the first marked, frontline electric vehicle in the force, West Shore RCMP Superintendent Todd Preston said.
“It is actually in Ottawa right now being retrofitted,” said Preston. “We couldn’t be more excited to be part of this progressive move here in the West Shore.”
Preston said the RCMP aims to be net-zero by 2050, and initiatives like this will help achieve that goal. In addition to the Tesla, Preston said the detachment is also expecting to receive a Ford Mustang Mach E EV for testing alongside it.