Tesla Model 3 now cheaper in NZ

The price of the new Tesla Model 3 has dropped significantly in New Zealand, with nearly $3000 off the Standard Range Plus and $5000 off the Long Range and Performance models.

So says Tesla Owners Club of New Zealand founder and president John Fitness who adds the price of the Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus has dropped 22% in about six months, from around $77,000 to just over $60,000.

The Tesla New Zealand site lists the Long Range at $82,900 and the Performance at $95,900, although those prices are now probably lower too.

That’s brought a flurry of interest, with Fitness understanding that about 20 new Teslas sold within the first five minutes of the Tesla Auckland store opening for the week on July 12.

A Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus is listed on Tesla’s site at a drive away price (including on-road costs) of $68,732 but comes down to $60,532 after estimated savings (including the EV rebate which kicked in from July 1).

Fitness says the price could be even lower than that – coming in just over the $60,000 mark and he believes more than 1000 orders have been received from Kiwis by Tesla during the past month.

“For a month that’s nearly taken Tesla’s orders here to all of last year’s amount,” Fitness says.

He says some cost reductions may also been attributed to production efficiencies at Tesla’s Shanghai factory, which is also likely to see more Tesla deliveries from there to New Zealand and Australia.

Even the delivery wait has come down – from about 12 weeks to now around three to nine weeks, Fitness says.

He says many new Tesla buyers aren’t even bothering with a test drive first, often snapping up Tesla Model 3s as they are due, whereas asking for a test drive risks putting them at the back of the queue.

“We’re getting about 300 a month delivered,” says Fitness who believes more will come more frequently from China now that the Shanghai factory is seeing such increased interest in New Zealand.

The surge in Tesla enquiries has brought another benefit – Tesla Owners Club membership here has been increasing by “about a dozen a day”, Fitness adds.

The Model 3 Standard Range Plus is also listed with a 448km range under the worldwide harmonised light-duty vehicles test procedure (WLTP) to which Tesla has switched from the earlier New European Driving Cycle (NEDC), with Europe following the WLTP since September 2017.