Everyone loves a good bargain, especially if you’re making big purchases where every little discount or freebie helps make the purchase a bit more bearable. This applies to all sorts of things, such as when negotiating prices for a home, buying a new computer, or buying a car. But apparently it seems that getting a discount on a Tesla will quickly earn you the ire of the company’s CEO.
In a post on Reddit (via The Next Web), it details the story of what happened when Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk caught wind that a Tesla dealer appeared to be giving a customer a discount on a brand new car. Musk then tweeted out a rather lengthy letter to employees in which he basically stated that there should not be discounts on cars coming out of the factory in pristine condition.
“There can never — and I mean never — be a discount on a new car coming out of the factory in pristine condition. This is why I always pay full price when I buy a car and the same applies to my family friends, celebrities, no matter how famous or influential.” Musk notes that this is different if the cars are floor models, used for test drives, or have been damaged before, but otherwise offering discounts would weaken the company’s integrity.
That being said, Tesla isn’t alone in standing firm in their prices. Many big companies, especially Apple, almost never offer discounts, and when they do it isn’t by much, so this policy isn’t exactly new (although hearing a company’s CEO be so vocal about it is rather refreshing).
In any case the next time you visit a Tesla dealer and try to negotiate its price, don’t be surprised if the salesperson is less than willing to budge by a single dollar.
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