[sunstone]

The pedantic view is that Tesla did offer the $35k M3 for awhile and while they haven't delivered any yet they will. (It looks like the ones they will deliver will have the upgraded interior and a software locked battery).

Further more, if you know that magic words, you can still order one though it won't show upon their web site. So according to the letter of the law they will have offered, sold and delivered some M3's for $35k. They never undertook to offer this product/price combo indefinitely.

Though, as a prospective buyer it did seem pretty obvious that the M3 extended range version was a better deal. And apparently so did buyers in the ratio of 6:1.

I wouldn't be surprised if this convulsion in strategy is the result of Congress recently saying they would try to reinstate the subsidy for GM and Tesla electric vehicles. This might sound good, and would be good in the medium term, but think of how many buyers will now be putting their wallets away waiting for this subsidy that might never come. If Tesla saw orders dropping off a cliff on that news they would have to do something drastic.

[cjhopman]

> so did buyers in the ratio of 6:1

Right, because the choice was between a delivery of the more expensive one within a matter of weeks or paying a large deposit for the cheaper one with an "expected" delivery in months (which all evidence pointed to being many months rather than several months).