Apple building retail stores seemed absolutely crazy at the time, but was clearly an interesting experiment (regardless of whether it succeeded, which it happens to have done). Shutting the stores down 2 years after the pilot stores debuted would have felt like Jobs was "winging" it when he came up with the idea.

Tesla's time between debut and shutdown feels less like an experiment than a bold cost-cutting move. At least with Apple, they knew they had strong product sales before doing dedicated retail. Obviously, Tesla will sell plenty online, but how certain are they of the impact of online-only?