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I spent a few mornings of my summer standing in a Santa Monica parking lot surrounded by a small group of Tesla owners. The club (which has been going since 2019) meets every other Saturday morning in the parking lot of a CVS, usually with a complimentary setup of hot coffee and paper cups. Members park their Teslas and congregate in small groups of two or three. Overseeing the gathering is an older woman named Sue Bankalor, who sits with her husband Barry in front of their red 2020 Tesla Model X. She wasn’t always managing the group, she told me. According to Sue, the original founder of the group sold his Tesla recently for a tiny sportscar.

“We still love him,”

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