What are hundreds of Teslas doing in a New Jersey mall parking lot?

The Quaker Bridge Mall is the hottest shopping destination around. That is, if you’re just looking at the parking lot.

Across the sprawling New Jersey complex about 40 miles outside Philadelphia, rows of vehicles cover swaths of asphalt, offering the illusion that the struggling Lawrence Township mall is in the midst of a brick-and-mortar boom.

However, none of the vehicles — all of which are Teslas — belong to shoppers inside.

The electric vehicle manufacturer is using the lot to store hundreds of its cars, according to local officials with knowledge of the deal between the Simon property and a nearby Tesla showroom.

It’s no secret that shopping malls are in decline. According to local auto industry experts, New Jersey’s lumbering Tesla fleet may signal tough times for the Texas-based automaker, too.

Questions over the peculiar arrangement come at a time when the teetering company and its embattled CEO, Elon Musk, grapple with a surplus of vehicles and slumping demand at stores across the country.

Some industry analysts estimate that Tesla has more than 10,000 unsold Cybertrucks sitting in lots across the U.S., according to Forbes, while overall sales fell almost 9% in the opening months of the year — even as the larger electric vehicle market continues to expand.

Facing a glut of nearly 50,000 vehicles early last year, Tesla was at the center of a report from Sherwood News, an offshoot of the financial services company Robinhood, claiming the manufacturer’s excess cars were visible from space via satellite imagery.

By one early-June estimate, there were at least 400 Teslas parked at the Quaker Bridge Mall near the former Lord & Taylor department store that has sat vacant since 2021.

Laura Perrotta, president of the New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers, said the sheer number of cars likely was not a positive indicator for Tesla.

“No one wants a lot of inventory,” Perrotta said. “You have to move the metal.”

A majority of the cars are Tesla’s sedan-style vehicles, though the jagged edges of the manufacturer’s futuristic Cybertruck were a common sight along the mall’s south and eastern sides.

A Tesla salesperson at its nearby Brunswick Pike location declined to comment, directing The Inquirer to the manufacturer’s national office, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Local officials have a differing explanation.

Lawrence Township Council member Kevin Nerwinski said Tesla struck a deal with the mall several years ago to use the lot for storing vehicles that had been purchased and were pending delivery.

“The number of vehicles present varies over time, but their presence does not interfere with [Quaker Bridge Mall] operations or its shoppers,” Nerwinksi said.

Lawrence Township Mayor Patricia Hendricks Farmer suggested that the volume of vehicles was actually a sign of Tesla’s success in the region.

“The mall is benefiting from the financial part, and Tesla is selling cars,” Hendricks Farmer said.

Both officials underscored that the mall is a major driver of local tax revenue, and that the Tesla deal was important to the languishing shopping center’s success.

Whether or not all of the Teslas have sold, internet users have taken to speculating over the unfurling sea of chrome.

Last May, the YouTube account “Random Orange Cat Tech” posted an adventure through the lot to more than 10,000 viewers.

“What is happening with all these seemingly unsold Teslas …?” the user wrote.

“It freaked me out to see so many in one place,” TikTok user “thrivebycrystal” wrote on the platform in December, coupled with clips of the Cybertrucks stalled under winter skies.

The spectacle is not just a Jersey phenomenon.

Arrangements similar to the one between Tesla and the Quaker Bridge Mall are sprouting up elsewhere, resulting in a Cybertruck dumping ground at a suburban Detroit shopping center that violated local zoning codes and rattled officials. In St. Louis, around 400 Tesla vehicles have amassed at a soon-to-be-demolished mall.

Simon Property Group did not return a request for comment about the deal.

Auto sales insiders offered a variety of explanations for why Tesla could be struggling to move cars, from an increase in EV competitors and spiking interest rates on car loans to consumer anxiety over President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.

Then there is Musk’s foray into politics and embrace of Trump, alienating some potential customers from the brand.

While Perrotta, president of the retailers association, was cautious to say whether New Jersey is truly dumping Tesla, in the last several months, “[Tesla] registrations in New Jersey have been really down — exponentially,” she said.

“I’m sure it’s tied to Elon’s politics,” said Perrotta, whose group represents the state’s more than 500 car dealerships. “I’ve heard a lot of anecdotes from Tesla owners in New Jersey trying to sell their vehicles, and maybe buy a new electric hybrid.”

David Kelleher, president of David Dodge Chrysler Jeep RAM in Glen Mills ― and a direct competitor of Tesla ― said he has also noticed consumers souring on the brand.

“I had three people trade in their Teslas to me that said, ‘I love this car, but I won’t drive it any longer because of Musk,’” Kelleher said.

Still, Kelleher was cautious to assert that Tesla was not the only automaker in a slump, suggesting leads and foot traffic were down at other dealerships due to consumer uncertainty over tariffs and the broader economy.

Unlike traditional auto manufacturers, however, Tesla faces a uniquely precarious situation when it struggles to sell cars.

Because the electric automaker does not sell to dealerships and instead operates its own direct-to-consumer showrooms, it is responsible not just for producing vehicles but also for selling each car that sits on its lots.

Of the hundreds of Teslas at the Quaker Bridge Mall, Perrotta called the figure “mind-boggling.”

Apart from “mega dealers,” it is more common for an auto dealer to hold around 50 to 100 vehicles at a time, she said.

Meanwhile, a mixture of fresh EV competition and potentially restrictive state government regulations is adding further uncertainty to Tesla’s five retail stores across the Garden State. (The automaker operates eight locations across Pennsylvania, a majority of which are in the Greater Philadelphia region.)

In 2015, when Tesla was one of the only electric automakers around, former Gov. Chris Christie’s administration allowed Musk’s burgeoning company to bypass a state law that requires car manufacturers to sell their vehicles through third-party dealerships.

Now, with the arrival of rival EV companies like Rivian and Polestar, Tesla is just one among a handful of electric automakers on the scene, while mainstay manufacturers such as Ford and Hyundai expand their electric offerings.

“We’re seeing an explosion of EVs coming into the state,” Perrotta said.

In addition to increased competition, New Jersey officials are scaling back financial incentives for consumers who purchase electric, according to Perrotta, while the state is phasing out a sales tax exemption for EVs and introducing an EV registration fee, adding potential burdens for prospective buyers.

Then there are lawmakers like state Assembly member Heather Simmons, a Democrat who recently introduced a bill that would end the Christie-era exemption allowing Tesla and other zero-emission vehicle manufacturers to bypass dealerships.

The proposed law would “level the playing field” for the state’s auto industry, according to Simmons, whose district encompasses parts of South and Central New Jersey and includes the Lawrence Township Tesla store.

Simmons says the bill, introduced this spring when Musk’s name was inescapable in media coverage of the Trump White House, is not political.

Rather, Simmons said, the proposal’s goal is to protect consumers. The lawmaker said traditional auto dealers offer customers wider and more reliable access to repair centers and factory warranty services — and, in her view, are more grounded in local economies than multinational EV start-ups.

Tesla, in turn, has long argued that its direct sales model offers customers more consistent pricing and a simplified buying process.

Simmons’ bill, which is cosponsored by Assembly member Luanne Peterpaul, is currently in committee.

“The market for EVs has changed,” Simmons said. ”The [Tesla] carve-out is no longer necessary.”