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Tesla drops prices up to 20 percent in attempt to drive sales
- awa 4y agoThis is thanks to the absurd guidance by the govt. to only give tax break Model Y like vehicles if they are under $55K. (Personally,this hurts as I bought a MY in December)
- napolux 4y agoAlso happening in Italy, so I guess it's not only about US gov. https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/tesla-abbatte-listini-model-3-e-y-prezzo-scende-12500-euro-e-5000-euro-AEfbrMWC https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/tesla-abbatte-listini-model-...
- jjeaff 4y agoI don't really think the government needs to be subsidizing cars for the wealthy. Or encouraging bad purchasing decisions for the less than wealthy.
- gumby 4y agoThere is an argument for it: the best technologies start out expensive and even kind of crappy and only reach the people who really want (or need, in B2B) it. Then the important features get shaken out, and as mfg comes down the learning curve the production cost drops and the price does too (to build share). So if you can increase the number of people who participate in the early stage the technology will come down the learning curve faster, which is good for everyone (except the legacy producers, in the case of a replacement technology). In other words society can get a lot of leverage from the subsidy. Of course that's the best case, and there are opportunities for regulatory capture etc. I bought my first electric car around 2000 or 1999. No subsidies back then and the product was crappy. Tesla started selling subsidized cars that were adequate to enthusiasts, what, a decade later. The environment was different: not just the subsidies but technological infrastructure. You had to put up with the limitations of Tesla, but it was a viable product. Now there are many more manufacturers of electric cars, mostly better than T. So T has to scramble (if they can, which I doubt, but whatever). So this case is a net positive, IMHO. The fossil fuel industry propered due to extensive subsidies, and that was also a very good thing (among other things it cleaned up cities and saved the whales). But they should have been withdrawn long ago. That is an extreme example of regulatory capture.
- itsoktocry 4y agoMillionaires do not need tax money to save thousands on their 2nd or 3rd car, regardless of how nascent the technology.
- wutbrodo 4y agoYou're misunderstanding the purpose of the policy. It's not to help out car purchasers, but to shift consumption towards EVs. As somebody who cares a lot about the damage that ICEs do, locally and globally, it's enormously frustrating how many people care more about obsessive hatred towards the rich than they care about the planet burning.
- jjeaff 4y agoI think there was an early argument for subsidizing expensive EVs assuming that was the only way to advance them. But no longer is that the case.
- wilg 4y agoThe purpose of the subsidy is to reduce carbon emissions, yes? By developing fossil-fuel free industries. Does it matter who the cars go to?
- maxbond 4y agoSure, if they go into someone's garage as part of a collection, that's carbon positive (due to all the emissions to manufacture it and the lack of savings as it sits in a garage). Emissions are only potentially saved if it's frequently used and offsets an ICE vehicle that would have been used otherwise.
- wilg 4y agoYeah obviously. But is there any reason to think that is happening with brand new EVs? In such a way that would matter for this tax credit. No.
- robswc 4y agoSometimes I feel like people really overestimate the number of "rich people" and also attribute cartoonish behavior to them. I highly doubt the average Tesla owner (or luxury EV car, for that matter) is 1) so rich they buy it as a "collectible" and/or 2) don't drive it enough to justify subsidy
- maxbond 4y agoThat wasn't really the question though was it? The question was, is there a reason why rich people might be less desirable subsidy targets than other people. I have known several wealthy people with car collections, not like Jay Leno style collections but collections nonetheless.
- robswc 4y agoHow many Tesla owners are rich enough to afford it just sitting in their garage?
- wutbrodo 4y agoThe subsidy's goal is not to make the recipient's life better, but to shift consumption decisions from ICEs to EVs. The theory is that ICE/EV cost comparison is skewed by the substantial extra negative externalities of the former. This has nothing to do with how much is in the purchaser's wallet, and shifts consumption back to ICEs on the margin.
- bdcravens 4y agoDon't they already do this with the mortgage interest tax deduction? or the Earned Income Credit for having children? etc
- rasz 4y agoObviously you arent from UK gov, they gave out 100% allowance on company owned EVs https://www.gov.uk/capital-allowances/business-cars https://www.gov.uk/capital-allowances/business-cars plenty of taycans and etrons financed that way.
- mtmail 4y agoThe article seems US focused. Last week they cut prices in China, South Korea, Japan and today also in Europe. In case of Germany: Model 3 50.000 -> 44.000, Model Y 54.000 -> 45.000 Euro
- bfeynman 4y agoSeems like inflection point has been hit with tesla and EV industry. I remember not even that long ago tesla would try to drive sales by increasing prices and telling people to order before higher price goes into effect.
- robswc 4y agoI remember going around a few locations in Chicago and you couldn't even find any to look at. This was back 2-3 years ago.
- pengaru 4y agoEVs should cost less than ICEs, once the industry matures and we're awash in EV batteries that is. Still a ways to go it seems.
- dangerwill 4y agoWe are significantly more supply constrained in the production of current EV batteries than an ICE engine due to the rare earth minerals + Lithium involved. Unless there is a revolution in EV battery tech that reduces this reliance, the supply will never meet the demand of a 100% conversion of ICE to EV.
- brianwawok 4y agoAs far as I can tell, we have 10-100x more Lithium on earth compared to what we would need for 100% EV at current tech. And who knows what future tech will bring. https://energyx.com/blog/will-we-run-out-of-lithium/ https://energyx.com/blog/will-we-run-out-of-lithium/
- consumer451 4y agoAs far as lithium goes, I think the current bottleneck is lithium refinement. Musk said something like "if you want to print money, do this."
- vardump 4y ago"ICE engine due to the rare earth minerals + Lithium involved." AFAIK, there are absolutely no rare earth minerals in lithium batteries used in vehicles. Perhaps I'm wrong? For the reference, here are all of the rare earth metals: Lanthanum: symbol Ln, atomic number 57 Cerium: symbol Ce, atomic number 58 Praseodymium: symbol Pr, atomic number 59 Neodymium: symbol Nd, atomic number 60 Promethium: symbol Pm, atomic number 61 Samarium: symbol Sm, atomic number 62 Europium: symbol Eu, atomic number 63 Gadolinium: symbol Gd, atomic number 64 Terbium: symbol Tb, atomic number 65 Dysprosium: symbol Dy, atomic number 66 Holmium: symbol Ho, atomic number 67 Erbium: symbol Er, atomic number 68 Thulium: symbol Tm, atomic number 69 Ytterbium: symbol Yb, atomic number 70 Lutetium: symbol Lu, atomic number 71
- 1123581321 4y agoSetting aside the usual Tesla/Elon discussions, I think it’s good for the auto market for prices to be able to change more dynamically. Especially when they are lowered. It’s better than the paradigm of having an inflexible sticker price and leaving it to dealers to de facto adjust then based on unpleasant negotiations and add-one.
- itsoktocry 4y agoI'm not sure it's that smart in practice. The last thing you want is customers waiting for lower prices or feeling ripped off when prices change. Most big box stores will honour price changes within x days of your purchase to alleviate this.
- 1123581321 4y agoTrue. I'd like to see that retail practice come to autos.
- willio58 4y agoI wonder how much of the drop is just due to Elon's public persona in the past 2 years. He's really embraced the billionaire villain arc. In my personal bubble of young friends who are right around the age to buy their first EVs, Teslas are kind of cringey to own just because of Elon. Which sucks because Teslas do provide some good value still, especially with the supercharging network.
- newaccount74 4y agoI cancelled my Model 3 order a few years ago because Elon was such a tool. I don't remember exactly what he did, but it was something where I thought, I don't want people to think of that when they see me in my car.
- rayiner 4y agoSounds extremely petty and shallow.
- ancientworldnow 4y agoMaybe they just didn't want to deal with the poor QC and exaggerated range figures and needed another excuse to push them over the edge.
- adventured 4y agoThat's not what the parent comment in question said or implied at all.
- Salgat 4y agoNothing wrong with voting with your dollars. Do you cringe at people who avoid Nestle products?
- bdcravens 4y agoPeople boycott companies all the time for reasons unrelated to the product.
- Kon5ole 4y agoThe goal for Tesla has always (at least officially) been to make a cheap electric car, but when their expensive cars sold out at almost any price it made sense to keep the price high and invest in production capacity. From what I can gather, this move is very much in line with a decade of communication from the company so I'm not convinced it's as desperate a move as many headlines insinuate. I could be wrong of course and either way the signal to the market is "we expect growth to slow down" which is seen as a disaster in our economic system no matter why it happens.
- sinoue 4y agoMusk would have been better of paying the $1 billion to walk away from the Twitter acquisition and stayed profitably focused.