Tesla delays deliveries of Model 3 with Standard battery pack

Many buyers of Tesla’s new base Model 3 with Standard battery pack starting at $35,000 are reportedly being told by the automaker that their delivery is being delayed. In some cases, Tesla is trying to upsell them.

When Tesla finally launched the standard Model 3 for $35,000 last month, it promised 2 to 4 weeks delivery timelines to buyers.

We have yet to see evidence of Tesla delivering any Standard Model 3 to date, but the automaker has delivered many Standard Plus Model 3, which was also launched at the same time.

Over the previous day, Electrek has received several reports from buyers who had a delivery date for their Standard Model 3 after they have been told by Tesla that they couldn’t deliver the vehicle.

The message generally goes like this:

“Our apologies, we will need to reschedule your delivery appointment to a later date. A Tesla representative will reach out when we have a better estimate of your delivery timing.”

In cases we are aware of, Tesla has yet to reach out for a new delivery date, but several owners are saying that Tesla reached out to try to upsell them with the $2,500 more expensive Standard Plus Model 3.

We contacted Tesla about the situation and we will update if we get an answer. Update: Tesla declined to comment.

Electrek’s Take

This is definitely strange because we are at the end of the quarter and Tesla generally does everything it can to deliver vehicles at the end of a quarter.

The fact that the delayed deliveries all appear to be for the base $35,000 version of the Model 3 is also worrying.

I don’t think it means that Tesla can’t make them, as some are speculating, but it’s definitely going to negatively affect their bottom line, which I believe could be tough this quarter — hence why they are pushing deliveries in Q2 and trying to upsell people for a delivery by the end of the quarter.

The upselling is not surprising. The “Standard Plus” version was clearly created for that. I have no problem with Tesla trying to push that version, but they should have advertised the correct delivery timeline of each version in the first place.

The “Standard Plus” was always advertised with a faster delivery timeline, but you can’t also further delay a Standard Model 3 order after confirming a delivery date just to upsell the Standard Plus version. I hope that’s not what is happening.

As far as we know, Tesla has yet to deliver a single Standard Model 3. If that’s not the case, please reach out to us. We would also like to take a look at the standard interior.