Tesla has once again tweaked the Model 3‘s pricing structure and specifications. The Californian company’s entry-level model is now more expensive, but the cheapest version now offers buyers a little bit more driving range.
The changes weren’t publicly announced by Tesla, but they were spotted by Autoblog on the carmaker’s online configurator. The lineup is still broken down into three models called Standard Range Plus, Long Range, and Performance The cheapest Model 3 now costs $39,490, a figure that represents a $500 increase. It’s also 5,000 more expensive than the $35,000 figure often floated in the months leading up to the car’s introduction.
As a trade-off, the sedan offers up to 250 miles of driving range, which is 10 more than before; motorists are essentially paying $50 per extra mile of range. Tesla hasn’t revealed how it unlocked the extra range, but Autoblog speculated it’s likely software-related. There are no indications that the Model 3 Standard Range Plus quietly received hardware updates. It still takes 5.3 seconds to sprint from 0 to 60 mph, and its top speed still checks in at 140 mph.
The Long Range model remains unchanged. It costs $47,990, and it provides drivers with up to 310 miles of range. Speed-hungry EV drivers can cruise at 60 mph in 4.4 seconds, and they can keep going until the speedometer displays 145 mph.
The flagship Performance variant also offers a 310-mile range, and it takes merely 3.2 seconds to reach 60 mph from a stop, so nothing has changed on the specifications sheet, but the price of the Tesla Model 3 was bumped by $1,000 to $56,990. The final tweak is a visual one. The Performance’s 20-inch wheels are now dark gray instead of bright. The brighter wheels still appear on the configurator, but they can’t be selected, so they’re presumably no longer available.
The aforementioned prices don’t include incentives. Tesla buyers are eligible to receive up to $1,875 as a tax credit from the federal government. Some states will happily increase that amount in a bid to convince motorists to ditch gasoline. Motorists who want to claim anything at all from the federal government need to act quickly; the amount available to Tesla buyers began gradually decreasing after it sold its 200,000th car in July 2018, and the credit will disappear on January 1, 2020.
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