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posted by takyon on Friday March 01 2019, @01:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the self-buying-cars dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Tesla announces $35,000 Model 3, is closing its stores to pay for it

On Thursday afternoon, Tesla announced that it's finally ready to start selling the cheapest versions of its Model 3 electric vehicle. For $35,000—before any federal or local tax incentives—you can now order a rear-wheel drive Model 3 Standard Range. This car gets black paint and the as-yet unseen standard interior, which means manual (not power assisted) seat and steering adjustment, cloth trim, and a stripped-down audio system. Tesla says the cheapest Model 3 will have 220 miles of range, will hit 60mph (96km/h) in 5.6 seconds before topping out at 130mph (209km/h).

[...] However, these new, cheaper Teslas come at a cost. Tesla also announced that it is now moving to an entirely online sales model and will be shuttering most of its retail locations in the US. "Going to online only is incredibly helpful to us; in many parts of the US, we're unable to sell cars because of franchise laws. This substantially opens up our ability to buy cars. It's 2019—people want to buy stuff online," Musk said.

That means job losses. "There's no other way for us to achieve the savings required to produce this car and still remain profitable. There's no way around it," Musk said. However, when asked about the number or timing of job losses, Musk would not be drawn into details and dismissed the question as "not today's topic."

Tesla announcement.


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 01 2019, @06:13PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 01 2019, @06:13PM (#808816) Journal

    By building a _complete_ car with all the production-quality tools.

    Sounds like they didn't get that far before they found it wouldn't work so. I guess I'm not seeing the evidence that they spent more time and resources on this than if they had done the above.