Tesla’s 'secret weapon' disappears from website and fans are panicking

The Model 3 was supposed to be Tesla’s secret weapon in the car market, but fans are panicking after it disappeared from the company’s website, Electrek’s Fred Lambert reports.

It was this base Model 3 with a standard battery pack that was supposed to be Tesla’s “secret weapon” on the car market, the affordable luxury electric vehicle that would solidify and boost Tesla’s dominance in its niche market and spread it over into the mainstream car market. However, this might have to wait.

A Tesla Model 3 © Reuters / Lucy Nicholson

Lambert quotes CEO Elon Musk comments about the base Model 3 made during the company’s Q4 financial results conference call that suggest the base model could be made available to buyers later this year but, as per Musk “it’s a rough, rough guess.”

The problem is the cost, as is so often the case. The affordable Tesla has been promoted with a price tag of just $35,000, but right now the cheapest version of the Model 3 costs $42,000 and that’s after a price reduction. Tesla has more work to do on the car to lower the cost to $35,000 and it said on its website that this would take “4 to 6 months.” Now, this information has been removed from the website, causing some fans of the brand who had pre-ordered a Model 3 to worry.

This is hardly the first time Tesla’s CEO had had fans worried and will hardly be the last. Elon Musk is notorious for setting tight deadlines for this or that milestone in Tesla and then going into delays when the deadlines prove unrealistic. This could the case here as well: bringing the starting price of a base Model 3 down to $35,000 is certainly a challenge. However, there is a possibility Tesla will not overcome it.

In his report on the removal of base Model 3 info from the website, Electrek’s Lambert quoted a tweet from Musk from early February that said the base Model 3 will cost $35,000 after incentives. But the company had initially said it would cost $35,000 before incentives, again sparking worry.

The crux of the matter is the battery pack. Tesla needs to bring the cost of the Model 3 standard battery pack down further if it is to accomplish its $35,000 goal. This is apparently proving harder to do than originally expected.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com