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Tesla's Promised $35,000 Model 3 Is Still a Long Way Off (engadget.com)
When the Model 3 was first unveiled, it was pitched as an EV for the masses that would have a reasonable $35,000 price. Two years later and we still don't have a clear timeline as to when the $35,000 Model 3 will ship. In fact, Elon Musk last weekend unveiled the pricing and specs of a newer, more expensive Model 3 with AWD. It will cost $78,000. Engadget reports: CEO Elon Musk recently tweeted that the $35,000 Model 3 now won't ship until three to six months after Tesla achieves its 5,000 vehicle-per-week production goal. The reason for the new delay in the base model is simple: If the company was to ship it now, it would lose money on every vehicle and "die," as Musk put it. If Tesla had hit its initial forecasts and was producing 5,000 vehicles a week by January, the base, $35,000 Model 3 probably wouldn't have been delayed by so much. One potential problem for Tesla, as the WSJ points out, is that many of the 500,000 buyers who laid down a $1,000 deposit did so expecting to buy a $35,000 car, not a $49,000 one. When they get a letter saying the time has come to configure their EVs, quite a few might decide to back out, which could impact Tesla's already precarious cash flow situation.
It's almost like you want to sell the higher margin ones first, in order to help pay for the amazing capital expenditure it takes to build a car assembly line.
Who is shocked by this? Nobody should be, as this is how it has always worked.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
There's the powerful counterpoint of course that those vehicles actually exist, the $35k Tesla 3 does not in production quantities and is sliding further into the future with every announcement.
By the time I can walk into a Tesla dealer (especially in the UK as the RHD will be even further behind) and buy a standard Tesla 3, there will be probably another 2 major updates to that Ioniq. And maybe Ford etc will have their hands properly in play.
It's just frustrating. I don't want to go back to fossil, but I need more range. The Leaf 40 is a disaster, and who knows if the 60 will be any better.
So buy a Chevy Bolt or a Volt. Both have much better range than the Leaf and are decent cars in their own right. The Leaf is a car that is useful for short commutes and that's it. If you need more then buy something else.
There's the powerful counterpoint of course that those vehicles actually exist, the $35k Tesla 3 does not in production quantities and is sliding further into the future with every announcement.
The Ioniq EV sold 6797 units last year globally. Tesla delivered more Model 3s than that last QUARTER and is accelerating production. In fact Tesla delivered more Model 3s than the Chevy Bolt and Nissan Lead COMBINED in Jan and Feb this year. Right now Tesla is delivering around 2800 Model 3s per week.
By the time I can walk into a Tesla dealer (especially in the UK as the RHD will be even further behind) and buy a standard Tesla 3, there will be probably another 2 major updates to that Ioniq. And maybe Ford etc will have their hands properly in play.
That's a nice little fantasy story you are telling yourself. You do know Ford is literally stopping production of almost all non-truck vehicles right? And you think the Ioniq is going to magically be redesigned massively to compete on range with the Tesla?
I'm sorry, but when I bought a car and it needed to be specially built, I put down a deposit, and then it was built in the order it was received. I believe the term would be "the wait list was a queue, first in, first served". It was rather similar to how every other industry I've ever dealt with operated in terms of preorders. If Tesla doesn't fill preorders in the order that they were received, but instead in order of "most profitable", that just makes them a dick company. Seriously, imagine going in to a restaurant and you order, but then 3 hours later you haven't gotten your food because a slew of people who bought higher margin items came in after you. It's not a good way to run a business.