Recently, according to foreign media reports, the long-range version of the Model 3 is no longer available for ordering on Tesla’s North American website, with only the standard range version and the dual motor high-performance version available for ordering. The long-range version’s available ordering time is displayed as 2023.
To this, Musk responded on Twitter that due to the long delivery time of pending orders, the ordering channels for some models have been temporarily closed, and they will be restored when production capacity increases.
In fact, as early as March of this year, Tesla had already encountered a situation where there were too many inventory orders, and the estimated delivery times for several models were pushed back to 2023 on the North American website. Musk himself had also mentioned in May that due to the large number of orders, Tesla may close the ordering channels for some models.
It’s worth noting that according to the latest US renewable energy subsidy policy, the sale price of new energy vehicles must be below $55,000 to be eligible for subsidies, while the sale price of the Model 3 long-range version in North America is $57,990.
Final Words
As early as January 2021, Tesla removed the domestically-produced long-range version of the Model 3 from its Chinese official website, replacing it with a high-performance version at a reduced price. The domestically-produced long-range version was only available for less than 9 months, and has still not been re-listed on the website, and is even jokingly referred to as a “discontinued” model.
Now, the long-range version has also been removed from the North American market, and we are unsure whether it is indeed due to capacity constraints as Musk claims. However, considering the renewable energy subsidies policies in China and the US, as well as the sale price of the long-range version before it was removed (only models priced below 300,000 RMB are eligible for subsidies in China, except for NIO’s battery switching program), we might be able to draw some conclusions.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.