Tesla reduces price of the 75 kWh battery upgrade by 22% for some Model S owners

Tesla’s strategy of delivering vehicles with software-locked features is certainly novel in the auto industry – at least at their scale. We reported last year that Tesla was now offering almost $20,000 in software-upgradable options after buying some vehicles.

Based on pricing, the most significant upgrade is the Model S 60 battery pack upgrade to 75 kWh. Now Tesla has slashed the price of the battery upgrade by 22%.

Several owners reported the change to Electrek today.

Tesla increased the price of the base Model S 60 by $2,000 back in November ($66,000 to $68,000), but apparently, it is only now affecting the price of after-delivery battery pack upgrade to 75 kWh.

The owners saw the cost of the option on their ‘My Tesla’ page go down by the same $2,000 amount -from $9,000 to $7,000 – last night.

Here’s a screenshot of the page of one of the owner:

Even if it’s just a software update (and a trip to the service center if you want a new badge), it remains cheaper to unlock the 15 kWh difference before delivery – $500 cheaper to be precise.

We asked Tesla for comment on the change to see if it’s permanent and affect all Model S 60 owners with a 75 kWh battery pack. We will update if we get an answer.

As we recently reported with Tesla’s hacked Battery Management System exposing the real usable capacity of its battery packs, the Model S 60 is likely a better deal than the Model S 75 for most drivers.

Tesla has employed in-car purchase tactics before in order to sell features that are already installed, but not unlocked in its vehicles, like a free 1-month Autopilot trial program for Tesla owners who bought the car without activating the feature.

The automaker also prompted in-car messages to owners advertising the 75 kWh upgrade last year.

Despite shipping 75 kWh while customers pay for 60 kWh, Tesla claims to still be making money on the vehicle – though it also acknowledged that the introduction of the Model S 60 resulted in an average price decrease during the third quarter 2016:

“Model S average prices decreased 6.5% sequentially, primarily due to the introduction of the 60 kWh models and production of the 100 kWh variants only starting late in Q3, which would otherwise have balanced that out.”

The software-upgradeable approach is certainly an interesting one and it looks like Tesla is still tuning the new sale model.