Autocar
A Model 3 for £295pm with £295 down is a compelling deal, undercutting even petrol-powered superminis Has Tesla just kicked off a new price war? Right now, one of the best finance deals out there is for the Model 3 saloon base model, which can be had for £295 a month with just £295 down. Because finance deals can be pulled and stretched any which way to get the monthly figure down, I need to add that this is across two years, with an annual mileage limit of 8000 miles. That's excellent. Over the course of the two years, you're paying £7572 for a car that costs £37,990, which is well below the likely cost of the depreciation. To put that into context, Hyundai is offering a base-level i20 supermini for £321 a month over four years after an initial deposit of £1500. Tesla's deal is so cheap that it's almost a declaration of war. One battle motive we can mostly rule out is the need to sell more electric cars to meet the UK's tough ZEV mandate targets. Being electric-only, Tesla is already home and dry. I say 'mostly' because one game plan might be to juice the credits it can sell to car companies that are struggling to balance EV sales with those of more profitable combustion cars. Instead, this looks like another phase in Tesla's eternal battle with the Chinese. Tesla has form when it comes to shaking the tree on pricing. The company cut list prices by up to 20% globally in 2023 and the effects of that are reverberating even today because it sparked a price war that car makers in the country are still fighting. Last year, Tesla had to concede its long-held global leadership in EV sales to BYD after its sales dropped 9%, while BYD's rose 28% to 2.25 million. In the UK at least, so far this year Tesla is holding onto its EV lead with sales of 11,739 in the first three months. That compares with 10,035 for BYD, which has moved into second place in terms of pure-electric sales ahead of Ford, Kia and Volkswagen. BYD's published deals are nowhere near as good as that of the Model 3. Tesla's battle isn't just with the Chinese, though. While neither it nor BYD has to worry about ZEV mandate targets, they are both having to compete with global car makers that do have to raise their EV sales ratio, which invariably means discounting. Is Tesla making any money on this deal? It seems unlikely and therefore it might not last long. But for April at least, it should be good enough to hold the Chinese at bay.
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