I'm not sure, where you live, but here (Europe) car dealers are generally in the kind of urban sprawl, where industry and shopping malls are located as well. And the typical lifestyle brands have a lot of show-rooms in inner cities as well – for all the others I doubt it's necessary... People will buy used anyway...

It’s not about suburban shopping malls, it’s about urban ones.

Traditional car dealerships need someplace to store all the new and used cars which quickly gets into hundreds of cars sitting around. Showrooms on the other hand can get away with representative samples which requires vastly less space. That means they can afford locations with vastly higher costs per square foot.

> I'm not sure, where you live

This discussion is about American auto dealerships.

Seems useful to compare the dealership experience to how it works in other countries. In the US, the dealership experience seems to be pretty bad for many people, at least it was for me and everyone I know through several car purchases. It hasn't been the same experience for the several cars I have purchased after moving overseas. Not sure I could pin down the reasons why. It might be the same reasons that the service you get from banks here is so much better.

I bought my Tesla from the showroom collocated with the service center, and picked up the car from the same location.

Interesting, where was this? All the showrooms I've seen are strictly that and not even legally able to sell you a car. All they can do is "help" you access the website and buy it yourself online.