Tesla Releases New More Affordable Model 3/y That Cost $2k+ More Than Last Week
Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago
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Tesla released new Model 3/Y variants marketed as more affordable, but priced $2k+ higher than previous versions, sparking criticism and skepticism among consumers and HN commenters.
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Oct 7, 2025 at 5:28 PM EDT
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A guy who makes EVs spending $200 million to help elect the party that doesn’t believe in global warming can be called many things, but a “bribe” isn’t one of them, lol. He was acting directly contrary to his self interest.
A lawyer should know that...
Musk literally gave a several voters $1 million for voting for his candidate. And after he was threatened with criminal charges, after the fact re-defined the payment as appearance fees. Of course, in order to be hired for these appearances, you had to vote for his candidate.
From what I've read Musk believed that the loss of the EV tax credit would hurt the EV programs at other companies such as GM and Ford much more than it would Tesla, with a decent chance it could push the timeline for those programs becoming profitable far out enough that those companies might have to greatly cut back whereas Tesla could still profit without the credit.
If he did indeed believe that then supporting Republicans may have appeared at the time to be in his self-interest. That doesn't mean it was a good idea, of course, because who said that party would stop at just that tax credit? They also killed the emissions credits that ICE car companies were buying from Tesla which were responsible for something like 40% of Tesla's net income.
Musk just wasn't expecting to start a feud with the guy he put into office with that $200 million. Up until that point though, he was getting literally everything he wanted out of the bribe.
The $200 million was money well spent, it resulted into Musk staying out of jail and pulling up the ladder behind him now that's he the incumbent. The success or failure of Tesla in the marketplace at some point could have killed Musk's empire but I think we are now past that point: Tesla will survive and more friction for contenders serves him well.
Finally, there is a timing issue here as well: when Musk spent that money he was set to become a favored player at the court of Trump if Trump won, which happened. But that didn't really play out long term in the way he expected. So in a sense you are confusing the position that Musk took prior to Trump's election with the consequences almost a year later, which Musk could not have known with certainty at the time, even if it is a mixed blessing for Tesla, and probably a bigger loss to the challengers rather than to the incumbent.
I guess that's more the standard for news now but I always considered heavy bias to be a tabloid thing.
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