Tesla Inc has raised prices on its Model Y in the US, apparently due to rising demand and changes in US government rules that make more versions of the small sports utility vehicle (SUV) eligible for tax credits.
The Austin, Texas, electric vehicle company bumped up the price of the Model Y Long Range version by about 2 percent to US$54,990 and the Performance version by about 2.7 percent to US$57,990, according to its Web site.
The moves, made on Friday, come three weeks after Tesla cut prices nearly 20 percent on some versions of the Model Y, the company’s top-selling vehicle.
Photo: REUTERS
The price cuts were made to boost sagging demand, and also to make more versions of the Model Y eligible for the US$7,500 electric vehicle tax credit in the US’ Inflation Reduction Act. The full tax credits would be available at least into next month.
On Friday, the US Department of the Treasury revised vehicle classification definitions to make more electric vehicles — including SUVs made by Tesla, Ford Motor Co and General Motors Co — eligible for the full US$7,500.
The change came after lobbying by automakers that had pressed US President Joe Biden’s administration to change vehicle definitions to allow more expensive vehicles to qualify for a maximum credit.
Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk met with top aides to Biden last week to discuss the electric vehicle industry and the broader goals of electrification.
Under the sweeping law approved in summer of last year, pickup trucks, SUVs and vans with a sticker price up to US$80,000 qualify for electric vehicle tax credits, while new electric vehicles, sedans and wagons can only be priced up to US$55,000.
The rule had disqualified some higher-priced SUVs, such as General Motors’ Cadillac Lyriq and some versions of the Model Y, prompting complaints from Tesla and other automakers.
During Tesla’s earnings conference call last week, Musk said that the company had last month seen the strongest number of orders year-to-date in company history.
He also said the company had raised the Model Y price “a little bit in response to that.”
After Tesla’s price cuts, Ford responded by reducing the price of its Mustang Mach-E, in part to qualify for the tax credit and also to spur buyer interest.
However, crosstown rival General Motors said it had no plans to cut electric vehicle prices.
The electric vehicle tax credits are among a host of changes enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act, which the US Congress approved in August last year.
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
The US Department of Commerce last week ordered multiple chip equipment companies to halt shipments of certain tools to China’s second-largest chipmaker, Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd (華虹半導體), its latest action to slow the country’s development of advanced chips, two people familiar with the matter said. The department sent letters to at least a handful of companies informing them of restrictions on tools and other materials destined for two Hua Hong facilities US officials believe make China’s most sophisticated chips, the people said. Top US chip equipment companies Lam Research Corp, Applied Materials Inc and KLA Corp, each of which has significant
RSS