Tesla Inc. seems to have taken a step back from their decision to close most of their stores/showrooms and transition all sales to online — now the automaker aims to increase the price of its entire vehicle lineup by 3%, which is the cost of keeping at least half of their physical stores alive.
The $35,000 base variant of the Tesla Model 3 is the only exception to this price hike, even the $37,000 Model 3 will get a price increase of 3% which will bump the new price of the Standard Plus Range Model 3 to $38k+.
Tesla recently dropped the prices of their vehicle lineups globally, of which China experienced the most insane price drops of up to $50,000+ on the top tier performance variants, some of the price drops on these vehicles will be reversed in light of the latest decisions taken at the company.
Potential Tesla customers have one week to order their cars on the current prices, after that the automaker aims to increase the vehicle price tags, pull the trigger on your order and avoid paying a few thousand extra bucks, starting next week.
Tesla Inc. released the following blog post late last night to update everyone regarding their decision to keep several stores open and the new price changes it brings to the table (in full below).
Last month, we announced that we would be winding down many of our stores and moving to online-only sales in order to pass the savings along to our customers.
Over the past two weeks we have been closely evaluating every single Tesla retail location, and we have decided to keep significantly more stores open than previously announced as we continue to evaluate them over the course of several months. When we recently closed 10% of sales locations, we selected stores that didn’t invite the natural foot traffic our stores have always been designed for. These are stores that we would have closed anyway, even if in-store sales made up our entire sales model. A few stores in high visibility locations that were closed due to low throughput will be reopened, but with a smaller Tesla crew. In addition, there are another 20% of locations that are under review, and depending on their effectiveness over the next few months, some will be closed and some will remain open.
As a result of keeping significantly more stores open, Tesla will need to raise vehicle prices by about 3% on average worldwide. In other words, we will only close about half as many stores, but the cost savings are therefore only about half.
Potential Tesla owners will have a week to place their order before prices rise, so current prices are valid until March 18th. There will be no price increase to the $35,000 Model 3. The price increases will only apply to the more expensive variants of Model 3, as well as Model S and X.
To be clear, all sales worldwide will still be done online, in that potential Tesla owners coming in to stores will simply be shown how to order a Tesla on their phone in a few minutes. And the generous return policy of 1000 miles or 7 days, whichever comes first, should alleviate the need for most test drives. However, cars will still be available for test drives at stores at the potential Tesla owner’s request. Stores will also carry a small number of cars in inventory for customers who wish to drive away with a Tesla immediately.
Video: Tesla’s latest price change by My Tesla Adventure
Featured Photo by u/Lancaster61 with exclusive permission.
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