Tesla has increased the price of its popular Model Y Long Range today – bucking a trend that has been worrying investors.
Over the last year, the trend for Tesla has undoubtedly been price cuts.
The automaker claims to be closely tracking orders and comparing them to its production capacity and when there’s a discrepancy, it has primarily relied on price cuts to close the gap.
CEO Elon Musk has put most of the blame for demand issues on interest rates, making monthly payments on car loans less affordable.
It resulted in about a dozen price cuts through the last year across the company’s entire EV lineup – with the last price drop on Model 3 and Model Y coming just earlier this month.
There have been a few small price increases, but they have been rare, and in between many price drops.
Now, there has been a rare new one for the Model Y Long Range:
It’s only a $500 increase to $48,990 or about 1% increase, but it’s still significant.
Electrek’s Take
Even though this is barely a 1% increase, what is significant is the fact that Tesla is breaking the trend.
If Tesla is staying true to its strategy, it should mean that Tesla is seeing stronger demand for the popular electric SUV.
That is going to be appealing to investors.
Now, it is going to be interesting to see if it’s still going to be that way toward the end of the quarter, when Tesla has often started to offer more incentives.
It could be a sign that other initiatives, like advertising, are starting to work and Tesla can reduce its reliance on price cuts.
What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.