Tesla's pricing numbers for its future cars are all over the place and changing by the minute. Just today, CEO Elon Musk revealed that the promised price of $ 30k for Robotaxi will be “post-incentive” – before the car will cost $ 25k a few minutes later.
During Tesla's Robotaxi event earlier this month, the company revealed that the autonomous vehicle will be available for users to complete with a base price of $30k.
While this isn't exactly the $25k car we've been promised for years, the $30k price tag for a standalone car has proven attractive to many people.
…If it were true. And it turns out that wasn't the case.
Today on Tesla's earnings call, Musk made a number of conflicting statements about Tesla Robotaxi pricing, suggesting that he also doesn't know how much the car will cost when it comes out.
The first question that was asked on the phone went like this:
Is Tesla still on track to deliver an affordable model next year, as Elon said earlier, and how does that fit with your AI and product roadmap?
We just reported on this earlier today, when the shareholder letter said affordable models will be released next year. We asked which model Tesla is talking about – will it be a refresh of the Model Y, or an actual new model that we haven't heard anything about yet?
In response to this question from shareholders, Tesla added a third option to the mix: maybe they were talking about Robotaxi? (which should be noted, almost everyone except Musk realizes that he's not actually coming out next year)
Tesla answered the question this way:
As Elon and Vaibhav both said, it is our plan to meet that in the first half of next year. Our goal has always been to reduce the cost of our vehicles in order to increase the adoption of sustainable energy and transportation. Part of that is lowering the cost of current cars. The next stage in that fit on our AI roadmap is when we deliver Robotaxi which lowers the initial cost of entry into an EV
Then, right after this conversation about Robotaxi, Musk quickly added:
It will be like, with incentive, sub 30k. Which is kind of the main limitation.
Again this actually new information. Before this, Tesla had only said that the car would start at $30k – without specifying whether this was a front or rear incentive.
If it's post-incentive, that means the Robotaxi will have a base price of about $37,499 — actually less expensive than other cars Tesla has made before.
Previously, the Model 3 was sort-of-available for $35k as an “off-the-menu” item, but it's doubtful that anyone was able to take advantage of that short pricing window. But Tesla still has a blog post on its site announcing the car's availability.
In fact, the cheapest Tesla available was the $38,990 Model 3 from last year, which it was available with a $7,500 upfront federal tax credit. That puts it just $1,400 more expensive than the upcoming $37.5k Robotaxi, a difference of less than 4% in price.
So Robotaxi does not look much cheaper than previous models, and the price of $ 30k seems to be based on motivation.
Notably, these are incentives that Musk is working to eliminate. Musk has made hundreds of millions of dollars to hurt EVs, directing his money to the man who asked oil companies to lobby him to end EV incentives, his Project 2025 platform calls for the repeal of the bill that created these EV incentives, and who is deluded about ending the mandate of the The missing EV.
So it may be difficult to meet that number of $ 30k if Musk has spent so much money and time in finishing the incentive that he just agreed that his price promise is based on it.
But maybe it won't actually be $37.5k after all?
Because, later on the same call, when asked when Tesla will have a $25k car model (like the one Musk just canceled) that. this is not the case Robotaxi/Cybercab, Musk said: “having a standard model for 25k is useless” and later in the same answer, he said about Robotaxi “it will cost on the order of 25k in a positive way. So a 25k car. And you will only be able to buy it if you want.”
So, despite a few minutes ago clarifying that Robotaxi would be $30k after compensation, he went on to say it would cost $25k, and didn't say if incentives were involved that price number.
This $5k price change within minutes recalls a similar episode at Tesla's 2024 shareholder meeting, when Musk suggested that Optimus robots (currently operated remotely) could eventually be worth $20 billion in Tesla's market. . A few minutes later, Musk said that he thinks it could be worth 25 billion dollars in Tesla's market cap – a jump in the amount greater than the total value of any company in the history of the world, and within just a few minutes. .
All of this suggests something that many viewers have seen for a while: when a number comes out of Elon Musk's mouth, it may or may not actually be anything. This was certainly the case with the days of release in many of Tesla's previous locations, and with Musk's claims about FSD's intervention. But it also worked on prices, and that seems to work here as well.
The difference this time, however, is that instead of taking one bogus number and sticking to it, even after it seems unlikely, Musk now seems to change his bogus numbers from sentence to sentence.
Maybe he's finally seeing something that everyone noticed a long time ago.
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