A dedicated PR department for Tesla holds Elon Musk (51) for superfluous. The boss has always boasted that he never invested a cent in the electric car manufacturer’s marketing. That’s how the cars sold. Then on Monday came the surprise: an employee who is responsible for “content” at Tesla, among other things, sent out a press release. And that suggests the conclusion: Tesla will not get rid of its vehicles all by itself.
“Tesla promotes fleet vehicles with a new Tesla innovation bonus,” headlined the electric car manufacturer. The manufacturer promises German business customers who order models of the 3 or Y series from Tesla with immediate effect if the cars are delivered by August 31, 2023.
With the Model 3, a discount of up to 9750 euros is possible: the state pays 4500 euros, Tesla increases its manufacturer’s share of the so-called “environmental bonus” from the previous 3000 euros by the 2250 euros mentioned. The entry-level price for fleet customers is therefore 33,035 euros net.
With the Model Y, Tesla is doubling its funding share from the previous 2250 euros, with the subsidy from the state fleet customers get a 9000 euro discount. The SUV is therefore available to commercial customers from €35,473 net.
On September 1st, the federal government will introduce the support program for fleet buyers electric cars then the environmental bonus will only be available to private customers.
The electrification of European business fleets is “an important step towards a sustainable energy future,” says Tesla himself.
Musk and Co. had lowered the prices for Model 3 and Y several times in the past few weeks and months. Contrary to what some market observers had expected, hardly any other brand had entered the price war. Stellantis boss Carlos Tavares (64) recently had Tesla’s doings succinctly “Welcome to my world, Elon” commented. Musk is apparently getting nervous about not being able to keep his promise to sell 50 percent more cars every year.
Further indications of immense sales pressure
In addition to the pricing policy, there are other indications of immense sales pressure at Tesla. The manufacturer has been able to steadily increase the production capacities in its factories, and Tesla now builds more than 5,000 vehicles per week in Grünheide. The delivery figures can not seem to keep pace with the growth rate with the production. Most recently, Tesla had regularly reported higher production than sales figures.
Several car dealerships recently reported that Tesla had approached them with parking spaces for unsold vehicles. The Model 3 in particular is attracting fewer and fewer buyers in Germany. After four months, new registrations of the car fell by more than half (-51.5 percent) compared to the previous year, at 4776 units.
This is also due to the ramp-up of the Model Y. With 17,487 new registrations in the current year, the SUV is number 1 in the German e-car ranking to date. In April, however, the car had a meager month with 1636 units, with significantly lower registration numbers than competing models such as the VW ID.4/ID.5 with 2723 units. In the previous three months, the Model Y had clearly dominated the bestseller ranking.
Tesla felt the risks of the discount battle in the balance sheet for the first quarter of 2023. Compared to the final quarter of 2022, the manufacturer’s operating margin was melted from 16 to 11.4 percent.
Elon Musk then tried to sell the lower profitability as a plan. “It’s better to deliver a large number of cars with a lower return and collect that return in the future as we perfect autonomous driving,” he said at an analyst conference in late April. So that the margin doesn’t collapse as well as the mass, the Tesla boss is now apparently fine with once frowned upon means such as PR work.
Note: In a previous version, the grant amounts for Model 3 and Model Y were not displayed correctly. We corrected that.