Tesla postpones price increase due to orders
Buyers have until midnight Wednesday to put in an order before the bump up
Remember that price increase that Tesla was implementing and was supposed to be in place by midnight Monday? Well, it’s been delayed by two days.
Early Tuesday, Tesla tweeted that it was postponing a previously announced 3 percent increase for all of its cars except for its new $35,000 version of the Model 3 sedan. Tesla had made the price increase plans public March 11 at the same time it said it would keep half of its stores open following a plan in late February to close all such stores and move completely to an all-online ordering model.
“Due to unusually high volume, Tesla was unable to process all orders by midnight on Monday, so the slight price rise on vehicles is postponed to midnight Wednesday,” Tesla tweeted Tuesday.
The move continues weeks of backand-forth for Tesla about its plans to
upend the way it sells its cars. In addition to unveiling its long-awaited $35,000 Model 3, Tesla said it would begin the process of closing all of its stores and taking all of its car orders online, and would give car buyers one week to try their cars out at home with the option of getting a full refund if they weren’t satisfied with their purchases.
Tesla said the closing of the stores was necessary to help bring down costs in order to produce the Model 3 for $35,000.
But by mid-March, Tesla had changed its plans and said that its would leave some stores open, which would necessitate the 3 percent price hike.
Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for further comment about delaying the price increase.
The delay in Tesla’s price increase also comes less than a week after the company unveiled its Model Y crossover SUV and its base sticker price of $39,000.