Tesla Model Y Price: Elon Musk Fails To Keep ‘Affordable’ Electric SUV Promise

Tesla Model Y, the newest crossover SUV which recently made headlines during its live reveal this month, gathered some serious attention for being introduced as a $39,000 electric SUV.

The Model Y is set to become a serious contender in the growing American SUV market and Tesla CEO Elon Musk believes that this vehicle is bound to become one of Tesla’s best-selling model yet. According to a report, Musk is confident that they can present the Model Y as an “affordable” SUV as it will be applying around 75 percent of the Model 3’s parts into the crossover model.

However, less than a month since the actual announcement and the crossover SUV’s price tag is already increasing. According to a report, the Model Y has now increased by $1,000 across the board.

This means that the initial $39,000 base price is now at $40,000 while the higher variants will be offered at $48,000 to $61,000. This effectively breaks Musk’s promise to offer a relatively cheap and smaller version of the much more premium Model X SUV.

Most car analysts expect that Tesla will come out first with the premium version of the Model Y but find it odd that the company is changing its tunes when it comes to pricing less than a month since it was launched.

The sudden price increase could make it difficult to sell the new SUV but then Tesla recently announced a new referral program that might still boost selling as early as now.

Tesla scrapped the old referral program early this year but is now back again with a different offering. The new referral program will earn the buyer 1,000 miles of free Supercharging. This is a nice perk although not as exciting with the previous referral program which gets your photo launched in space or gets you a Tesla S for kids and a Blackwall connector on top of free six months of supercharging.

Coincidentally, the Tesla CEO also confirmed that all inventory cars globally will increase by around 3 percent. Musk clarified that orders made online will not change as inventory cars are slightly lower than published website prices.