Does Tesla only know the price of its cars?

The saga of the Tesla Model Y priced at 36,990 euros has lasted long enough. Summer is over, it’s time to get back to serious work.

For more than a month, Tesla’s homepage has listed the Model Y starting at 36,990 euros. Until yesterday, this was true with the option to order a new Tesla Model Y Propulsion for 36,990 euros. Okay, it was September 2nd and the offer was ending on August 31st, but aside from this little detail, the manufacturer was playing the game by applying a 4,000 euro discount on the model that benefits from a 4,000 euro ecological bonus. 8,000 euros off, that’s a real gift!

This morning, no more discount but the car still displayed at the same price without any conditions. Great, the discount has now been generalized! Crazy with joy and enthusiasm, we enter the configurator and to our shock, it’s at 40,990 euros… There must be a problem as we just lost 4,000 euros with a click. Don’t believe us? Here’s proof with screenshots from Tuesday, September 3rd, at precisely 4:06 PM and 4:07 PM:

Disturbing, isn’t it? So where is the truth? Is Tesla lying to us? Are we making up prices at Mobiwisy as we can sometimes be accused of? And above all, are we engaging in Tesla bashing? On this last point, we are often very critical of the marketing and sales aspects, that’s true and fully acknowledged, but one need only see how much we appreciate Teslas as cars to not be accused of that.

So, where are these low-priced Model Ys hiding? Simply in the list of available new vehicles. These are often a buffer stock of highly demanded vehicles and more rarely ordered vehicles that were ultimately not purchased. But Tesla also has the bad habit of slipping demo cars or employee vehicles into this list. Thus, we indeed have today two Tesla Model Ys at 36,990 euros that have respectively 52 and 60 km on the odometer. Indeed, that’s nothing, but in that case, why place them amid cars that have no mileage, thus truly brand new? To illustrate this, in the “Certified Used” section, there is a Model Y that shows… 13 km. Less than our two new cars!

So yes, it’s frustrating and especially not very serious. We love Tesla because it’s a constant source of surprises, but we dislike their buzz culture which often flirts with misinformation. Otherwise, why not display Tesla Model 3 for less than 28,500 euros? It’s not false; there are two on the site that match this assertion, but they are from 2020 and 2021 and show respectively 103,145 and 86,067 km on the odometer. That’s almost new for a Tesla…