As part of Tesla’s reversal of its sales and pricing strategy, the automaker is also again changing Autopilot prices, which are coming ‘back to normal’ on Monday, says CEO Elon Musk.
Tesla’s many recent price changes were controversial but none more than those relating to its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving packages because the automaker changed pricing on software updates that it never delivered.
The automaker also presented the offering to buyers as costing less if they order the software before delivery – incentivizing them to do so, but after price changes last month, they would have saved thousands of dollars if they would have waited for features they never got.
Now Musk says that the prices are going to ‘revert back to normal’ on Monday March 18th:
Those prices will revert to normal on Monday too
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 12, 2019
They will go back to normal along with a 3% increase of prices across the board (except for the base $35,000 Model 3) following the partial reversal of the new online-only retail strategy.
In response to my tweet explaining the situation described above, Musk admitted that it was a mistake to drop those prices in the first place:
In retrospect, lower price shouldn’t have been offered. Was done so because some simply couldn’t afford it. Prices revert to normal on Monday.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 12, 2019
Musk says that owners who bought the Full Self-Driving Package before the price decrease will still get access to the Early Access Program.
All Full Self-Driving Package buyers will also get the upcoming Autopilot Hardware 3.0 computer upgrade.
Electrek’s Take
Dear god, this insanely complicated pricing situation keeps getting crazier.
At least, Elon admitted that it wasn’t fair to lower the EAP and FSD prices in the first place.
At the same time, he just created another great incentive for owners to buy the packages right now before they become more expensive next week.
They got me for another $2,600 CAD tonight:
I expect that many other owners will do just like me – resulting in a significant cash injection for Tesla.
Did Elon really make a mistake that he now realizes in hindsight or was it a master plan to increase EAP and FSD take-rate with current owners before the end of the quarter?
Honestly, I don’t know with Tesla at this point.
What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.
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