Tesla has decided to stop taking new orders for its Model 3 Long Range, one of its most popular models, in the United States and Canada. The automaker has adopted this new business model to avoid creating delivery timelines that are super long for customers.
There’s currently a rush to order electric vehicles as the technology becomes more mainstream and, in the short term, grows in popularity due to gas price increases and the new federal EV incentive expected to become law any minute.
For Tesla, we previously reported that this uptick in demand has resulted in a significant increase in its order rate in several regions of the United States. In March, this resulted in many Tesla models being sold out until 2023 in the United States. That’s despite several price increases throughout Tesla’s entire lineup over the last two years.
In May, Tesla CEO Elon Musk warned that Tesla might stop taking orders on some vehicles because of long delivery times as backlogs become bigger. The automaker has now followed through on the warning with an update to its online configurator today:
As you can see above, the Model 3 Long Range is now greyed out and cannot be selected to order. Tesla added a note that it will be “available in 2023.”
The screenshot above is from Tesla’s US configurator, but the vehicle is also not available in Canada.
The Model 3 Long Range is one of Tesla’s most popular vehicles. Based on Musk’s warning, it’s likely that the automaker now has a large enough backlog for the model that it doesn’t make sense to take more orders until it can work through it.
Tesla has also removed the pricing of the vehicle for now. Before today’s update, the price was $57,990. It’s likely that the price will be updated when Tesla reopens orders.
The Model 3 Long Range might be one of the few electric vehicles that could be eligible for the new EV tax credit with the battery and critical mineral criteria, but it is going to have to be less than $55,000 in order to qualify.
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Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
