Discounts

In an email sent to all employees, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed what some customers have been saying online for months; that the company was offering discounts on some new Tesla vehicles despite company policy that all customers pay 100% of the advertised retail price.

This discovery began when a customer posted on Reddit his dilemma: Tesla couldn’t deliver the P90 he purchased until the following week, but the salesperson wanted him to pay for the vehicle in full prior to delivery, or else he wouldn’t honor the discount they negotiated. The thread was shared with Musk on Twitter TWTR +0.17%, who responded immediately that the company never discounts.

It turned out that he was wrong.

Tesla Motors’ steep third quarter discounts for Model S vehicles have apparently resulted in a 70 percent rise in the company’s deliveries.

The California-based electric automaker said Sunday that it delivered nearly 24,500 cars in the quarter, including 15,800 of Tesla’s Model S and 8,700 of the Model X, a sports utility vehicle. The increase in deliveries, of course, comes after Tesla offered an “aggressive” secretive discount program as a ploy to drive delivery numbers.

The ploy was used to dramatically reduce the luxury vehicle’s pricey cost, which usually retails at around $100,000. The delivery count, because of the reduction in cost of inventoried vehicles, rose 37 percent from the previous quarter.

Brad Erickson, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, said on Sept. 29 that he “detected aggressive Model S discounting at U.S. sales centers to maximize third-quarter deliveries.”

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