Sending a $ 35,000 iteration of the Model 3 sedan would immediately cause Tesla to lose money and die, "wrote Musk Photo credit: BLOOMBERG
The long-promised $ 35,000 version of the Model 3 sedan from Tesla Inc. is still nowhere to be seen, but it is getting closer to that price.
The maker of the electric car has begun picking up orders for a middle class battery Model 3 that goes about 260 miles between costs of $ 45,000. That is about $ 4,000 less than the starting price of the sedan that went on sale last year, excluding incentives or options.
While Tesla makes Model 3 more accessible to some buyers, the starting price for sedans with the long-distance battery rises to $ 54,000. This iteration of the car has a range of 310 miles, plus a faster top speed and a zero-to-60 time. A cheaper rear wheel version is no longer available.
CEO Elon Musk remarked in a tweet that the middle class Model 3 costs $ 35,000 after federal and state tax rebates in California, but the clock tallys that buyers can get a large share of those savings.
Buyers of Tesla can no longer receive the federal tax benefit of $ 7,500 after 31 December, as the company reached the limit of 200,000 sales in July. This incentive is halved in the first six months of 2019 and is then halved for the next six months.
Musk, 47, first unveiled the Model 3 to big fanfare in March 2016 and promised that it would start at $ 35,000 before incentives. Within a few days, the company had more than a quarter of a million reservations. Although he still has to deliver the sticker price two and a half years later, the demand was high, with sales rivaling in the last quarter of the best-selling passenger car in the United States.
When Musk announced a performance version of the Model 3 in May that cost about $ 80,000, he said the company needed to reach higher production levels and cut costs. Sending a $ 35,000 iteration of the sedan would immediately cause Tesla to lose money and die, "he tweeted.
That long-awaited prize may be a few months away, Musk suggested in a post on Thursday in which the middle model 3 is described.