Tesla's UK prices are about to go up by 5 percent
The company blames currency fluctuations (aka Brexit) for the move.
Tesla has sent out an email informing customers and anyone else that's registered interest in the company's EVs of an impending 5 percent price in the UK. From January 1st 2017, any custom order will become costlier, while second-hand and showroom vehicles are safe from the hike. It's not an insignificant jump when you consider it will up the price of the base Model S by almost £3,000 -- from £58,900 to £61,845.
It's actually the second time Tesla has increased UK prices in the past few months, after a roughly 3 percent bump in early October. In the email concerning the 5 percent increase next year, Tesla attributed the decision to "currency fluctuations," which almost certainly refers to significant drops in the value of the pound following the Brexit vote in June.
Many, many companies have taken to protecting their bottom lines by increasing prices, of course. OnePlus added £20 to the cost of its flagship OnePlus 3 just a couple of weeks after the referendum vote, and recently, Apple quietly hiked the prices of its desktops at the same time it announced the new MacBook Pros.
The 5 percent price hike isn't the only thing that's due to impact the cost of Tesla ownership, as any newly purchased vehicle won't include free, unlimited access to the firm's Supercharger network from next year (we don't know what Tesla intends to charge at this point). You can bet the company is thinking long and hard about local pricing for the Model 3, which it intends to announce next year.
With a starting price of $35,000 in the US (roughly £28,000 at the current exchange rate), the Model 3 will be Tesla's attempt to break out of the luxury niche with a mass-market EV. The more prices increase across the board, though, the more your potential customer base shrinks by default.
