Thekiwi
Active Member
Absolutely I would expect tesla to raise pricing if their vehicles became eligible for a $4.5k subsidy. Also, even if they didn’t raise pricing by the same amount, the subsidy would mean more people choosing higher trim SKUs, increasing company margins.The car maker doesn't get the extra money though unless they raise the price of the vehicle.
The GMs of the world have a much easier way to do this because their pricing is so much less transparent.
They can leave MSRP where it is, then just fudge around with the amount of MFG rebates. They did this with the bolt--- the street price didn't change a ton when the tax credits went away, but GM had to eat more of the discount off MSRP rather than letting the government do it.
For GM to capture that tax credit into their own pockets again they only need remove those MFG incentives without touching the "public" price of the car.
Tesla, since they don't do that nonsense, had to actually cut prices when the credits went away.
They've since creeped them back up some (whole other discussion on the many ideas floated why- some of which include anticipating a new credit)- but if they wanted to capture MORE of that $ they'd need to raise the actual price since they don't play those hidden pricing games like legacy does.
Plus- the union would still be there after the credits weren't. Whole other debate if that's "worth" access to the credit of course.
I'm not doing that. At all.
I'm pointing out you seem to think I made an argument I never made, and are now asking me to defend something I never said.
Not even remotely no.
Especially when you never asked that specific question about "all" unions- nor did I ever make any claims about "all" unions the entire time.
You seem to be having a different discussion than the one I've actually posted in.
Also remember tesla sells annually many vehicles per employee - so a $1-$2k increase in per employee annual costs would only equate to less than a couple of hundred dollars per vehicle, Vs the $4,500 subsidy benefit each vehicle becomes eligible for. So even if tesla “only” increased pricing by $2k in response to their vehicles becoming eligible (meaning for customers the vehicles become $2.5k cheaper) - then the price increase is still 10x-20x higher than the increased labour costs, leading to much better margins.
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