Tesla sees order surge in light of gas costs, Model 3 and Y LR get price hikes

It was expected that the rising price of gas would push well-to-do buyers towards EVs. And it seems that's already happening in certain parts of the US this week.

According to a reported insider, talking to Electrek, Tesla has enjoyed a huge increase of orders this week, reportedly 100% more than last week. We can't verify the claim, but it stands to reason that Tesla would bear the fruit of increased EV orders, especially in the US, where it accounts for about 80% of the EV market.

To put things into perspective, Tesla's Models Y and 3 dominated the US market in January with orders for 18,549 (38.8% of all BEVs) and 13,604 (27% of all BEVs) cars.

While a big increase in orders sounds wonderful for Tesla, it won't help the automaker to actually push cars to the buyers. Currently still working from two factories (with the Gigafactories in Texas and Germany under production at the moment), Tesla has backlogged its most popular Model Y until September 2022, and the Model 3 until July 2022.

Tesla has been known to increase prices of its cars from time to time. Over the last year, the Model Y's price has increased by $10,000, while that of the Model 3 Long Range has jumped by $4,000.

This month the Model 3 Long Range has been increased by $1,000 and so have the Model Y Long Range and Performance.

Nickel could be the reason behind the increase in price. The price of the metal has surged due to the situation in Ukraine, as Russia is the world's third-largest producer of it.

The long-range batteries of the Model 3 and Y both contain nickel, while the standard ones don't, which could explain the issue. Tesla hasn't given an official statement on this.

Source 1 | 2