Tesla Inc, in a move to widen its customer base, announced on Thursday it would start leasing the Model 3 Electric Sedan in the United States.
With adoption of financing strategy for its Model 3, the automaker is making it possible to lease the much-hyped model in the United States for the first time as all Model 3 variant will be available on lease for a small down payment and competitive monthly payments thereafter. The leases, which will be available with mileage limits of 10,000, 12,000 or 15,000, will help the company boost sales of its Mosel 3 amidst investors concerning about the demand of car in a longer term.
But unlike other standard auto industry leases having an option for lease to buyback the car at the end of the lease, Tesla’s lease will not allow the customer to purchase their leased vehicles at the expiry of contract.
Tesla, in a blog post said that option of buying the leased vehicle back will not be available at the end of lease as the company is intending to use those vehicles in its planned ride-hailing network by making those vehicles fully autonomous with updated over-the-air software.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, since long, has given a hint of starting company’s ride-hailing network, but so far avoided to share the details for same.
Tesla is also intending to make a standard feature on all of its cars of bundling them with autopilot software which will cause the company not only to increase the base price but also to remove Model 3 Standard from online ordering.
Resultantly, Tesla online store will now be available with the $39,500 Autopilot-included Standard Plus as the lowest-price Model 3 on the menu to be ordered in the United States, while its long-awaited $35,000 version of the car with great fanfare, which was launched in February, will now become a software-limited version of the Standard Plus, a move to simplify the company’s production.
