Motorists in the market for a brand-new Tesla now have fewer standard colors to choose from. The California-based firm announced plans to remove two colors from its palette in a bid to standardize its production process and step out of production hell once and for all.
Staying true to tradition, company co-founder and CEO Elon Musk made the announcement on his personal Twitter account. He explained removing obsidian black metallic and silver metallic from the list of standard colors will allow Tesla to simplify its manufacturing process by reducing the number of possible configurations. The company has mostly figured out how to reliably mass-produce the Model 3, its vaunted mainstream model, but it’s under an immense amount of pressure to keep the momentum going in the coming months.
Moving 2 of 7 Tesla colors off menu on Wednesday to simplify manufacturing. Obsidian Black & Metallic Silver will still be available as special request, but at higher price.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 11, 2018
There’s a catch: obsidian black metallic and silver metallic aren’t going away entirely. They will still be available, but buyers will need to special order them at a higher cost. Tesla hasn’t revealed how much it will charge for the colors yet. As of writing, the only color included in the price of a Model 3 is solid black. The six other colors (including the two that are going away) cost between $1,500 and $2,000.
Following the announcement, some Twitter users expressed legitimate concerns about the ability to get their car repainted after a shop performs body repairs. Musk replied that service centers will continue to stock all colors in the foreseeable future. We suggest you avoid denting or scratching your Tesla as the firm’s cars are notoriously expensive to fix, but don’t worry about paint availability if you do.
Charging more for certain colors is a common practice in the automotive industry. Most automakers ask buyers to pay more for metallic colors. High-end brands like Porsche and Mercedes-Benz offer special, eye-catching colors to motorists willing to pay a substantial sum of money for them; Mercedes-AMG’s solarbeam yellow metallic costs $9,900, for example. Finally, luxury companies like Bugatti and Rolls-Royce can create special, one-of-a-kind paint colors for money-no-object customers.
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