After a series of cuts this year, Tesla Inc. has upped the prices on some of its vehicles.
The company now lists the price of its base Model S car at $87,490. That’s up from a recent price of $84,990, though still below what Tesla was charging in early March.
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website also now lists the price of a base Model X vehicle at $97,490, above the $94,990 price Tesla had been charging after it made a round of price cuts earlier in April. As with Tesla’s price increase on the Model S, the company’s move to raise Model X prices still doesn’t bring the customer cost back to levels from early March.
The company, which is said to have disbanded its press team, didn’t respond to a MarketWatch request for comment.
Tesla’s stock inched up 0.1% in premarket trading Friday.
The various price cuts earlier in 2023 came as Tesla looked to spur demand in a competitive market for electric vehicles and amid greater financial pressures on consumers. But the company’s Wednesday afternoon earnings report illustrated the tradeoffs associated with Tesla’s actions, as margins took a hit.
The sentiment from Tesla’s earnings call was that the company was willing to absorb some margin pain in order to get cars into the hands of consumers who would later pay for software features.
“It’s better to ship a large number of cars at a lower margin, and subsequently, harvest that margin in the future as we perfect autonomy,” Chief Executive Elon Musk said on the call. While Tesla sees a massive future in autonomy, Musk has made numerous predictions about Tesla’s ability to harness the technology that have yet to pan out.
Tesla shares suffered a nearly 10% decline in Thursday’s session as one analyst predicted that margins could “get worse before they get better” while another floated that Tesla likely had more room to cut prices and pressure competitors if it wished.
