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The Tesla’s pricing policy it was never clear. The car manufacturer has always applied price cuts or increases, even of a certain importance, without any prior notice and without ever justifying the real reason. Over the course of 2021, the American automaker has applied several increases to prices of the Model 3 and Model Y. Fortunately, this has almost always affected the American market alone.
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Auto
06 Mar
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THE COSTS OF RAW MATERIALS INCREASE
The increases have been in the order of a few hundred dollars at a time, but over the months they have become, overall, an important figure. Suffice it to say that since February, a Model 3 Standard Range Plus has gone from $ 37,000 to $ 40,000. A Model Y Long Range instead, from just under $ 50,000 to $ 52,000. Tesla never wanted to explain the reasons for these continual small increases.
Finally, Elon Musk has clarified the situation. The occasion came when users asked why Tesla had it lumbar support removed in the passenger seat in the latest Model 3 / Y delivered to customers. According to Musk, the car logs show very limited use of this device. Therefore, it is not worth the cost since it is almost never used. A choice that, however, would be linked above all to the lack of supplies since BMW would also be having the same problem with this device.
The most interesting thing, however, is the explanation for the price increase. Musk points out that costs are rising due the strong pressure on the prices of the supply chain throughout the industry. In particular, the increase would concern above all Raw materials. Tesla’s CEO did not go into details but several commodities for the automotive industry including copper, aluminum and steel have seen significant price increases since the beginning of the year.
Increase in costs that Tesla is then forced to pass on to customers with an increase in the list prices of its cars. It will be interesting to understand how the manufacturer intends to address this issue in the future as its goal would be to reduce the price of cars over time to make them more accessible and not to increase it. Therefore, the related industries are increasing prices and this problem also adds to the difficulty of finding the semiconductors that modern cars are increasingly dependent on.
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TESLA AND THE CHIP CRISIS
In this regard, Elon Musk, commenting on the data of the first quarter, had pointed out that his company had managed to contain the problem by increasing the suppliers, managing to rapidly develop new firmware for the new components. Speaking, however, of the current quarter, Tesla’s CEO stressed the difficult moment and that the biggest problem in the supply chain obviously concerns semiconductors.
And with one of his “colorful” comments, Musk points the finger at other companies that are ordering more chips than necessary, just like the people who hoarded toilet paper at the start of the pandemic. According to Tesla’s CEO, therefore, companies driven by the fear of running out of chips they would be over-ordering.
Our biggest challenge is supply chain, especially microcontroller chips. Never seen anything like it.
Fear of running out is causing every company to overorder – like the toilet paper shortage, but at epic scale.
That said, it’s obv not a long-term issue.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 2, 2021
For Musk, however, this would not be a long-term problem even if several analysts say the crisis will continue for a long time. However, according to a Financial Times report, it appears Tesla is moving quickly to contain the semiconductor supplier problem by taking several measures including paying suppliers upfront and even buying a chip factory.
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