Virtue-signaling, early adopters of electric vehicles are feeling taken for a ride at the news Elon Musk’s Tesla would be slashing prices, perhaps as much as 20%, for their “green” automobiles.
Tesla announced the massive price reduction in order to help potential buyers now qualify for new tax credits as well as boost slumping sales, according to the Wall Street Journal. The new price cuts could make purchasers of a new Tesla eligible for as much as a $7,500 federal tax credit.
Speaking to Fortune, one Tesla owner says she feels “duped” upon hearing she could have enjoyed massive savings had she just waited a few months longer to show off her fancy electric car.
Fortune featured Marianne Simmons as one such example. It wrote:
Marianne Simmons, a self-professed “Tesla fan girl,” bought her second electric vehicle from the company in September: a white, high-performance Model Y ringing in at more than $77,000. Then the company slashed prices on Thursday and she realized she could have bought the same car today at $13,000 less.
“I feel like I got duped. I feel like a got taken advantage of as a consumer,” Simmons said. “Right off the bat, I’m out $13,306. It’s such a large reduction that it’s going to affect a lot of people who just bought a vehicle.”
Of course, this all feels like anti-Musk propaganda and classic whining from an entitled generation. Basic economics would suggest that the agreed-upon price for this particular owner was the market at work. Tesla offered a price and Simmons willfully paid it; it obviously represented a fair deal, regardless of future price alterations.
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Fortune then attempted to pain previous owners as victims of the sudden price drop. Fortune quoted a director of research at Edmonds.com, a major website in the car space. Ivan Drury, director of insights for research, said: “For any existing owner it’s a kick to the teeth,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights for research website Edmunds.com. “Anyone who bought a Tesla recently will feel an immediate impact wish they leased it.”
Drury said that the price reduction on new purchases will have the further effect of lowering prices of used Teslas as well.
The Fortune piece goes on to describe other economic illiterates who feel entitled to complain about market forces. It featured several other people in similar predicaments.
Austin Flack, a television producer in Los Angeles, said he listed his 2018 Model 3 with the Full Self-Driving Beta software package for around $51,000 in December, but slashed that price to $36,000 as Tesla unloaded incentives near the end of the year. He said he’ll likely have to cut the price again to $30,000.
Jack Bradham, a cloud services developer in Charlotte, North Carolina, said he’s miffed that the black Model Y long-range edition vehicle he bought in December has been devalued.
Again, there are no victims here. Their timing was unfortunate, but it’s not as if Elon was in a boardroom gleefully rubbing his hands together and laughing maniacally at the thought of screwing people over.
Prices go up and prices go down. That’s how this works.