Tesla Drops Prices, Potentially Ramps Fleet Sales to Rentals
This morning, a pundit tweeted they saw beaucoup de Tesla sitting idle at a Hertz location, suggesting the company may be stuffing rental channels in a bid to inflate sales. In quick succession, it then became clear that Tesla has slashed prices on all its models – big time.
First, the rental situation. According to Twitter user @PolitiReality, a host of (several hundred, by their estimation) Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles were seen at a Hertz outlet in Boston, lined up side-by-each in a covered parking facility. They all appear to be plated and, judging by the signage, are definitely at an airport. The photographer went on to say they spoke with an attendant who suggested they were being “given to everyone” but that “50 percent of them” were being returned by renters. We’ll take those numbers with hefty grains of salt but there’s no denying the rows of idle Tesla cars.
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The upshot is that Tesla could be restructuring their prices around these credits in a bid to move more metal. The same objective could also be accomplished by flooding the rental market with cars.
The irony should not be lost on anyone. After years of needling legacy automakers for this type of sales puffery, it seems Tesla is now feeding from the very same trough.
