Tesla stopped selling the cheapest Model 3 Standard Range model

Tesla has stopped selling its cheapest electric car model: Model 3 Standard Range Rear-Wheel-Drive. This follows from the updated online Model 3 configurator, which no longer contains this version.

The Model 3 Standard Range Rear-Wheel-Drive was the cheapest Tesla electric car available for purchase. Its price was $39 thousand (before tax incentives).

Tesla often changes the configuration of its cars without making any announcements or explaining these changes. But this time, it is highly likely that we can determine what happened and why.

The Model 3 Standard Range was the last Tesla vehicle to use LFP batteries from China. Chinese batteries have recently received increased import duties to the US, and these batteries also make it difficult to access the $7.5k EV tax credit. Tesla probably felt that this particular configuration would not be competitive with the increased duties.

Now, the cheapest version of the automaker’s Model 3 Long Range Rear-Wheel-Drive is offered for $42.5 thousand, so interested consumers will have to pay $3.5 thousand more. In the United States, one can hope for a federal tax credit that will save $7.5 thousand, which means that this car will cost $35 thousand.

Source: electrek