Teslas On Paper Tags Keep Filling This Neighborhood And Residents Are Fed Up

Dozens of Teslas are being shuffled between street spots as residents grow frustrated over unanswered questions

Imagine waking up one morning to find what appear to be unsold overflow vehicles from your local dealership parked all over your street. That’s essentially what some residents in Signal Hill, California, believe is going on. The dealer in question just happens to be Tesla, and the cars appear to be old stock with paper tags that are now overflowing onto public streets.

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One resident told SF Gate that “it seemed like they just appeared overnight” and that at one point she counted 24 scattered throughout her neighborhood. That’s a lot of cars anywhere, but these vehicles are making a bad problem even worse. Parking in Signal Hill, like most anywhere in Los Angeles County, is tough to find.

Parking Limits, Loopholes, and Local Frustration

Evidently, it’s not just the local residents who are noticing the issue. Parking enforcement has added warnings to some of the cars in question. Legally speaking, they are allowed to be there, though they may not park in any one spot for more than 72 hours consecutively.

According to the resident mentioned above, the cars “seem to move fairly regularly to avoid being ticketed.”

Why would Tesla make a move like this? The automaker has a dealership in the heart of Signal Hill. It’s well known for using parking lots to store excess overflow, too. For over a year, it has used an abandoned mall in Missouri as an overflow lot. It got into hot water over a similar plan in Michigan earlier this year. We’ve seen it do something similar in Miami, too, with much smaller lots.

A Pattern That’s Hard to Ignore

While it hasn’t been confirmed that Tesla or its dealership is behind the parked cars in Signal Hill, it would be unusual for another organization to be responsible. The paper tags and consistent vehicle type suggest a single source, and Tesla’s past tactics point in a familiar direction.

SF Gate reached out to the local police, tow companies, and to the Tesla dealership, hoping to shed light on the situation, but nothing came of it. We reached out to Tesla itself but have yet to hear back. The company is notorious for ignoring press requests. At this point, it sounds like someone is going to have to ask one of the people moving the cars just what exactly is going on.