brucet999
Active Member
Several items moved from Tech package to Premium Package:
Power Liftgate
Fog lights
Cornering lights
Lighted door handles
Autopilot is its own option now
All the rest became standard equipment
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Several items moved from Tech package to Premium Package:
Power Liftgate
Fog lights
Cornering lights
Lighted door handles
Autopilot is its own option now
All the rest became standard equipment
This tweet has since been deleted.
For reference tweet is here:
Elon Musk on Twitter:
and screenshot since he deletes stuff and this one has some typos:
Yes my parents were told the same thing at the Newport Beach CA showroom today when they asked if they could still order a car in silver.
Here's my take on the paint color situation and Tesla's current capabilities. We know Tesla is working on a new paint line, but it's not supposed to be ready until this fall (the last shareholder letter indicated it would open shortly after the Model X begins production in late summer). That means we're still operating on the old line with its limited capabilities. The old line appears to be limited to 10 colors at a time, since that's the most Tesla has ever offered at once. Before this week, there were never more than 9 official colors offered at once. The 10th nozzle would have been used for custom colors or Signature Red for new markets.
Green, brown, and custom colors had to be discontinued before the three new colors could be offered. Now they are full at 10 colors, but before Model X goes into production they need more room to fit in whatever colors are going to be offered on Model X Signature. Thus, they can keep painting the old colors until June, but in July they need to prepare to paint early Model X production. Once the new paint line is operating none of this will be a problem and who knows how many colors they will be able to offer then. Until then, they have to plan accordingly and it means reduced color choices.
Green, brown, and custom colors had to be discontinued before the three new colors could be offered. Now they are full at 10 colors, but before Model X goes into production they need more room to fit in whatever colors are going to be offered on Model X Signature. Thus, they can keep painting the old colors until June, but in July they need to prepare to paint early Model X production. Once the new paint line is operating none of this will be a problem and who knows how many colors they will be able to offer then. Until then, they have to plan accordingly and it means reduced color choices.
green1
Active Member
If they need to reduce choice they need to better select their colours, out of 10 colours they have 2 blacks a white several greys, a blue and a red. That's really only 4 colours. If you are limited in what you can do, make the most of the limits and make the choices as different as possible!
I suspect the latest changes are a function of the garbage Tesla catches from Wall Street and the financial media if they fall a bit behind guided margins (they got tarred and feathered a couple of months ago for 1,400 cars being shifted from December delivery to January. No real impact on anything, but a perception game field day for Tesla's critics).
I think with the $75K 70D offering better value to the customer (and less margin to Tesla), they had to make up a bit of the margin they would otherwise lose by tweaking pricing of options. This lead to the bemoaned $5,000 Premium package. With the complaints about that $5K price (which, fwiw, I agree with), Tesla realized they had to switch to something more reasonable, and now have priced that package at $3K. To make up some for this decrease, they axe all but one token non-premium paint color, so the vast majority of cars pay for premium paint, among other small margin friendly changes. I think it's fair to say this is all somewhat a shell game, but it does seem the 70D is a better value than the 60, and, as widely discussed, we may see a similar move with the 85s soon (what's more some nice value got added in the fall with the new autopilot hardware).
I think with the $75K 70D offering better value to the customer (and less margin to Tesla), they had to make up a bit of the margin they would otherwise lose by tweaking pricing of options. This lead to the bemoaned $5,000 Premium package. With the complaints about that $5K price (which, fwiw, I agree with), Tesla realized they had to switch to something more reasonable, and now have priced that package at $3K. To make up some for this decrease, they axe all but one token non-premium paint color, so the vast majority of cars pay for premium paint, among other small margin friendly changes. I think it's fair to say this is all somewhat a shell game, but it does seem the 70D is a better value than the 60, and, as widely discussed, we may see a similar move with the 85s soon (what's more some nice value got added in the fall with the new autopilot hardware).
green1
Active Member
Why would the 70D have lower margin? it costs a fair amount more than the 60 did, and historically tesla has higher margins the higher up the ladder they go, so i highly doubt the 70D will lose them money.
green1, they added about $8K in value with the 70D compared to the 60, but raised the price only $5K. it's possible that they were able to do this without absorbing $3K in lost margins (they might have a new kind of battery cell that is cheaper to produce among other possibilities), but they may have needed to tweak the options to basically pay for the better value of the 70D starting price. Something unseen certainly seemed behind that $5K price for the premium package... dropping the colors seems to have an unseen rational as well.
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