Tesla Model 3 Price Will Be £25,000 In UK (Rumor)
Originally published on EV Obsession.
Thanks to the openness of one of the commentators on the Tesla Motors Club forums, it seems that we may now know what the retail pricing for the UK market is going to be like, with regard to the Tesla Model 3.
The commenter in question, “YoungStranger” simply asked a Tesla rep at the recent NEC in the UK what the price for the Tesla Model 3 would be, and actually got a definite answer.
Here it is in his/her own words:
Went to solar energy uk show today at NEC. Was told by Tesla rep that UK price for model 3 would be £25k. Asked if that was a rumour and included gov incentives. She said she was authorised to give this price and it did not include incentives. Is this a deal?
That does sound pretty solid to me. Given the way that things are typically priced in the UK (as compared to in the US), that’s about what I had been guessing myself, for the basic (not tricked out) Model 3s.
Forum commenter “Dan43” noted:
Interesting, I guess the suggested $30K US price today equates to £19,431 via XE.com. I’m in at £25K and if incentives still exist that could drop to £20K.
Or would used Model S be close to that £30K price. How much is a used Model S probably a 60KW model, in the UK right now?
Hmm. I really have to wonder about the choices that Tesla will actually end up making (concerning Model 3 pricing) in the European markets. It’s a very different situation than the one with the Model S — where those buying are specifically interested in purchasing a prestige item, and don’t care that much about costs. To truly be an “affordable” electric vehicle (EV) option in Europe, on the other hand, Tesla will need to undercut local manufacturers like Renault. At the same time, it has to be low enough to compete against used Model Ss (for those who don’t simply want a smaller Model 3).
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Now that’s getting in my price range – All we need now is a car!
£25k is still on the high end of affordable.
A brand new Yaris will set you back about £13k.
Now OK, lets take (uncertain, given the Tories) tax incentives and it could drop to £20k.
How long to recoup £7-8k. On petrol costs alone, that’s at least 10 years.
I reckon, price has to be closer to £15k and it’s still going to need that 250mi range. And by 2020 to get the EV shift really moving.
You compare a Model 3 to a Yaris?
A Yaris is a small, but 5 seat, mid-to-low range car – the type that is most prevalent on UK roads (to my knowledge). This is the type of car we need to replace, fast to avert the worst of GW.
A £25k ain’t going to compete – the upfront cost is the biggest barrier for most people I’d suggest.
If you look at Toyota’s UK range (only because I currently have a Toyota), even with a tax break, a Mod3 would still be more expensive than most of their range….
Now, yes running costs and maintenance will be lower, but at 5000miles/yr, it would take me ~10years to recoup the difference in cost. And that’s assuming free solar power.
We need EVs to be cheaper and fast.
A Nissan LEAF at £15k, provided it had a 250mi range would be ideal.
To get to a sub £20k 200 mile EV will take a while longer.
Three years ago it wasn’t possible to produce a £25k long range EV, it still isn’t today. It will apparently be possible in about one more year. We’re building our way from expensive to cheap.
If we get a sub £20k EV by the early 2020s we will have solved the “replace gasmobiles” problem and done it in about one decade. I think that’s very good progress.
The next task will be to replace ~all ICEVs with EVs. That may take another two decades.
No, logically the kind of car you need to replace fast is the type that by sales X consumption represents the biggest total use of gasoline/diesel, because you can’t force people to buy small cars. Even if the Yaris is the largest-selling single model, that doesn’t prove that its size class is the largest. If your biggest selling class is mid-sized cars, or if it’s even 80% as large as the subcompact class, it would be the largest consumer of fuel. And I understand that mid-sized cars are pretty expensive in the UK.
We need to replace them all. As fast as possible.
I’m not saying we need to replace the luxury A3s or 3series with small cars.
I am saying that we need affordable EVs that can replace the compact car market – and this is perhaps the biggest segment of the market in not just the UK, but also the EU.
Fuel efficiency is, to some points irrelevant. Replace 10million compact cars by EVs and you save more petrol/diesel than replacing 1million luxury BMWs.
The Yaris comparison is ridiculous. The Model 3 will supposedly be competing against the BMW 3 Series, and the Mercedes C Class, neither of which are in the Yaris brigade. In fact, no model BMW or Mercedes are in the Yaris brigade for that matter.
Not ridiculous at all. The Mod3 is supposed to be *affordable*
£25k is not *affordable* for most people.
The cars you describe are perhaps best described as luxury cars.
The Ford Focus sort of size of car is the most prevalent on our roads and is the sort we need to be replacing, and is what I’d be describing as affordable.
Are BMWs and similar cars unaffordable?
Correction, No BMW is up to the standard of a Yaris. C’mon, you know that only a completeTw@t would drive a BMW.
To have uncompromised EV’s compete in the lowest-priced segments, battery costs will need to be comfortably sub $100/kWh (or the car will need to consume an exceptionally low Wh/mi). We’re not there yet. The Model 3 will compete with cars like the BMW 3, Audi A4, etc. What do they cost in the UK?
Given the battery price projections available, a compelling uncompromised price-competitive Yaris segment EV should be possible by the mid-2020s. Maybe earlier if there is an unexpected step-change in battery cost via lithium-sulfur or solid-state batteries.
For base models:
Audi A3 £19k
Audi A4 £25k
BMW 3 series £25k
Volvo S60 £21k
Renault Megane £19k
Toyota Avensis £18k
Toyota Auris £15k
Ford Mondeo £20k
Ford Focus £16k
Any others?
But these are all high-end cars (apart from the Auris and Focus). I’d argue pretty strongly that these aren’t “affordable” for a lot of people.
£15k New is what is needed. Hopefully Renault or Nissan or someone else will come up with a better offering than this.
Sorry, but £25k is not “affordable” and is disappointing from Tesla who promised much.
A £25k Tesla would compete against the entry level BMW, Audi and Volvo base models. The price is low enough that we might see the sort of competition we’re seeing with the Tesla S and luxury models. (below)
The sub £20k will take a few more years. Getting from competing at the luxury level to competing at the lowest price points is going to be reached in steps.
What is about to happen with battery prices is akin to the development of inexpensive solar panels. When the PV industry started up it was too small to support its own cell production and used ‘leftover’ material from chip manufacturing. Once the industry grew large enough it created a more direct and focused supply stream and cell prices fell.
EV manufacturing has been operating off battery cells made for other purposes. Now it’s growing large enough for battery companies to build factories just for EV cell production. Once that gets going there will be massive efforts to drop costs further.
“Sorry,” don’t be – but do try to be rational in your analysis next time. If you want competitors to a Yaris, try a used iMiev. For a view to what Tesla is competing against, posts like Bob Wallace below are helpful. And look to the price ranges of cars like the Leaf, Volt and eSmart or even the high end i8, to see the range of vehicles plug-in makers are really competing against. And let’s try to remain rational and within the bounds of current means. It helps the discussion along.
I am being rational. £25k is not *affordable* for most people.
Tesla is marketing the Mod3 as affordable. It isn’t.
Affordable is a subjective sliding scale. Some people can only afford a 5-year old second-hand Focus.
What is not subjective is that Mod3 will be offered at a price which a far greater number of people will be able to afford than the Model S and Model X. So it is progress, and if the company feels that is the correct next business & scaling step for them then I’m pretty sure they know best.
While 25k may not be *affordable* to many people 15K cars are not *desirable* to a whole other group, and it behoves Tesla to have a car available for those people too, or Tesla will miss out on their business.
No one gets a <15K Tesla at any-point if they overreach now, skip a step and go bust.
OK, I was tired! New cars are not affordable. Most people on this planet will not be in the market for a new car. £25k is is about £3k more that the average transaction at US auto dealers in 2014. Prices are trending up and £25k is not far off from average – on a curve that is rising.
The vast majority of automotive transactions involve used cars. Even in advanced economies where there are high incomes. £25k vehicles in 2017 will be average priced used cars a few years later.
Again, you have to consider what’s actually on the roads. New cars that aren’t affordable become used cars that are. So many people might be buying used A4s instead of new Yarises because they don’t share your values. The Model 3 competes with the BMW 3-series because of its expected performance. You’re crazy to call Tesla disappointing when it’s matching popular German cars OF SIMILAR SIZE in a marketplace of egomaniacs who don’t care about the environment.
Maybe you don’t think people should have the right to buy luxury cars, but I’m getting sick of people who refuse to even acknowledge that luxury cars exist and burn an awful lot of gasoline.
It is disappointing. When people talk about affordable cars, I expect them to be affordable. £25k is not affordable for most people.
It’s nothing against Tesla (except perhaps using the wrong words) or any other EV manufacturer.
But what we need is a £15k 200+mi EV as fast as possible. That’s affordable.
Audi A3 only 19k? BWHAHAHAHAHAHA without tyres, I suppose.
That is according to Audi’s website. I have no idea what it includes. http://www.audi.co.uk/new-cars/a3/a3.html
I would imagine it includes some form of tyres, otherwise how do you drive it?
You can’t imagine how bare are basic Audi models. They have a steering wheel because it’s 100% necessary.
“I reckon, price has to be closer to £15k…” for what ends? Source?
No source. I simply walk out the door and realise, that in the UK, most cars are the Ford Fiesta and Focus/Toyota Yaris and Auris/VW Golf sort of size – i.e the “hot hatchback”/family car size.
If you look at pricing of these models, for a new version, they’re all in the range £8/9 – £15k (ish) in general.
If we want a modal shift from ICE to EV (and we do) and as fast as possible, then the EV has to be able to compete on upfront initial cost, because people won’t think, oh I will save £x on my fuel bills (well, they will, but £10k upfront extra is likely to be a bigger weight to consideration).
The faster this is achieved, the faster the 2nd and third waves will happen – i.e. the growth in the used car market, which is most cars are procured.
Many of us are impatient, Richard. We want the carbon problem solved already. Progress takes time.
Try this. Keep a list of progress made. A better battery, a more efficient solar panel, a drop in the cost of electricity from wind, etc. – write it down.
I think you’ll see that things are moving along fairly rapidly. As I said in an earlier post, we are on track to get from an expensive ‘luxury’ EV to a low cost EV in a single decade.
It’s nowhere with the shipping industry worldwide. More pollution than anything else. Sad, sad, sad. If it isn’t fixed, ships are going to sink us!!!
But you are living in Britain, which in your description is a 3rd-world country where everyone drives tiny old cars, though I think you exaggerate. Tesla is an American company. The best selling “car” in America is a giant Ford F-150 pickup that is only kept from weighing 5000 lbs because it is now easier to engineer an aluminum body for it than to get Americans to buy anything smaller. The most popular American-made luxury vehicles are SUVS built on even heavier truck chassis. So Tesla’s job is to work from the top down.
No, I never said tiny old cars.
Ford Focus/Toyota Yaris/Ford Fiesta/VW Golf etc aren’t tiny cars and I believe the new car sales market is as big as in any other country.
Yes, I know Americans like to drive stupidly big cars. That’s an American problem for you to solve.
“Tesla’s job is to work from the top down”
Why? Surely there is a much bigger number of cars in the market at the compact car range and so therefore more cars to be sold and more CO2 emissions to prevent.
Exactly. And people buy used.
It is still not clear how much you save with an EV. Hard to beat a 9000£-14000£ Dacia Lodgy which is a 7seater.
24000£ is the price of a Seat Alhambra.
The average driver only does 14.000km/a ( where I live), could be less over the canal.
Maybe an interest free loan to spread out the extra front up cost over 5-10 years analog to fuel costs could help. + cheaper cost of ownership and some agency to communicate that to buyers…
I think the savings are clear. It’s just that at £25k, the savings will not offset the cost of buying a luxury car instead of buying a Dacia or Yaris or other popular car in Europe.
There’s a very good reason why micro sized cars are so popular, and it is because of the price of fuel. Replace that fuel with solar panels (if possible) or even nuke generated electricity, and suddenly the ‘reason’ for buying a shoebox becomes moot. People with ditch their tiny Yaris’s in droves !
I suspect you are right. Weight is not a huge problem for EVs, much of the energy expended getting the weight moving can be recaptured with regenerative braking.
Aerodynamics are the big issue. Cars can be lengthened without changing drag very much. Stretch cars out a bit, give people in the back some more legroom, include a bit more luggage space. Small penalty.
And once we get fossil fuels off our grid we can add additional RE so that people can use a little extra if they wish.
I suspect a big chunk of that is not correct.
1. A Yaris isn’t tiny. I know I have one. It’s perfectly big enough to get 4.5 people in.
2. It’s not the cost of fuel that puts people off, it’s the upfront cost. I bought a Yaris because it was affordable and sufficient for my needs (I don’t need a car to be a penis extension, although for some people, it is)
I don’t want a massive luxury saloon or SUV. I want a cheap but decent Yaris/Focus-sized car that does about 250mi and costs about £15k (max).
One of the biggest growing brands on UK roads is Dacia. Because they’re cars are cheap (most expensive in their range is £10k). Upfront cost is key.
A Yaris is even smaller than a Focus. It’s more like a Fiesta, which is a smaller segment. Focus’ segment is Auris’ one.
And model 3, seems to be between a Focus and a Seat Leon.
Yes, I know that a Yaris and Fiesta are about the same size and smaller than a Focus and Auris.
The two most common *sizes* of cars on UK roads that I see are the Focus-size and the Yaris/Fiesta-size of multiple manufacturer makes.
Mod 3 is going to be a minimum of £10k greater than these sized cars. And £7k more than a Seat Leon.
I live in the UK and Toyota Yaris’s are not very popular. VW Golf size cars are most prevalent, but cars like the BMW 3-Series are often in the top 10, and would be very popular within corporate fleets. Corporates / leasing groups buy a high percentage of cars in the UK. On face value the Tesla Model 3 would be competing in this market and would really be up against cars like the BMW 3-Series, Audi A4 and the new Jaguar XE. But initially they won’t have any shortage of demand from private buyers, especially as they will be supply-constrained until they open a European factory. People will trade up from VW Golf’s because they want a Tesla, and will probably pay a bit more than they usually do.
I also live in the UK and Yaris’s are very popular! But I was using them as an example of the size of cars, as you say, like Golfs/Fiestas/Focuses etc that are the most prevalent.
If we want max CO2 reduction, we can only achieve by replacing the most prevalent type of vehicles on the road.
There is not much point in speculating about the price of a car that is years away from mass production.
2017 shipping date apparently, so not really that far away.
That’s bordering on too good to be true. Means it will probably be ~€40k in Ireland.
It is the car after the model 3 that will be the genuinely affordable car.
I agree with the general consensus that ICE Cars need to be replaced with EV’s like Tesla. I will say thought that all of you complaining about the Cost being too high at £25,000 (if true) are just cheapskates to be fair! Yes we all would like costs to fall and they will. Though that will take time. More importantly, you can not expect items of quality and great engineering to be too cheap. Sometimes in life you pay for quality. You would not expect to pay £10,000 for a brand new Ferrari Enzo. Even though you want to, you know you would be getting ripped off if you found one at that price. Plus the main point is that cost is relative. If Tesla introduced some sort of renting scheme akin to the new Apple iPhone upgrade program. Whereby you paid a monthly amount that is far smaller than what you would pay on finance, then you would be less inclined to argue it is too expensive.
or what if you found ways to be able to cover the monthly payments somehow like using the Tesla in your spare time to be a Uber Driver or something?
point is there are ways to earn Money and therefore afford a Tesla Model 3.
What concerns me more is the delay on allowing anyone to configure and buy a Model x and therefore we won’t be likely to see the Model 3 available for purchase anytime before the next 3 Years.
Forget Uber… Check out NIMBER.COM instead… No need to deal with drunks spewing all over you car etc.
UK Median wage £26,500.
Tesla Mod3 cost £25,000
That’s before we get to discussing the many other financial pressures that people face.
It’s not being a cheapskate, it’s being realistic about what is affordable for most people.
If there are ICE cars out there at ~£10-15k people will continue to buy them rather than splash out £25k on a Tesla. EVs need to be able to compete at this level.
As mentioned by PaddyB BMW3 is usually in the top list 10 best selling cars in UK and Tesla is going to have a part of this market. Another segment that is going to suffer at the hands of Tesla will be hot performance hatches. Golf GTI starts at 27,500. Skoda Octavia vRS at 24,230 and Ford Focus ST at 22,500. Good luck trying to sell one when model 3 will be so much faster, cheaper to run etc. It’s only con for racer boys will be … lack of engine noise so they will need to burn tyres to compensate but buy it they will.
If they can make the Right Hand drive in Tilburg and have the EU consider it a European made car that will be a massive help on the price. At the moment all the cars are made in California and the EU slaps serious import duties on each vehicle.
If the EU cared about emissions they would exempt TESLA from all duties and taxes but they are taking their orders from German Auto who mass produces gas guzzlers.
However we British have YET another PROBLEM. Do not think that voting to leave the EU will get you a cheaper TESLA…NO WAY ! If the UK leaves the EU and TESLAs are made in The Netherlands the British government will be slapping on the taxes and duties and NO Elon Musk will not build a TESLA factory in the UK if we leave the EU. That will not happen. So THINK before you VOTE !
“A little over a year ago Tesla opened a 18,900 square meter assembly facility in Tilburg, Netherlands.
http://insideevs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/tesla-tilburg-2.jpg
Apparently they undershot what the company would require, as Tesla has decided on adding a much larger, sustainable addition, to their current location located nearby.
This new building adds both a assembly facility/dock and a large hall, totalling about 49,000 m2.
http://insideevs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Tesla-Tilburg-1.jpg
Currently, all Tesla vehicles are produced in Fremont, California, and then partially assembled (or re-assembled depending on your perspective) in the Netherlands for various logistic and tax purposes.”
http://insideevs.com/tesla-triples-assembly-space-europe-2nd-tilburg-location/
There is absolutely no way that it will be this price in the UK. We pay over the top for everything, never the correct rate. All manufacturers with NO exception use the UK to pay over the odds to counteract the lower prices in other countries. It has been happening for years and will not change just because Tesla release a new model. This problem can be beaten and is in other countries but in the UK we don’t stick together and just pay too much for everything. Having said all of this, it will still be a great car if you live in the USA.