Tesla Motors’ third quarter shareholder letter includes the snippet that two powertrain options on the Model S are being dropped. One is a long-running, but now somewhat redundant option while the other is the dropping of one of the new “Model D” all-wheel drive options.
The first is the removal of the Model S P85+ model, which is being dropped in favor of the Model S P85D model instead. This is an obvious move that probably should have been seen as inevitable by Tesla fans following the new introductions.
The other is a little more ruffling. When the new “Model D” (all-wheel drive options for the Model S) were introduced, one of the offerings on the Tesla Motors website was a Model S 60D, the entry-level S car in the new AWD platform. That’s been removed and is no longer an option, leaving just the original Model S 60 in rear-wheel drive. This means that in order to get all-wheel drive, buyers must purchase the 85D at a $10,000 price premium.
Other notes include a couple of price jumps and falls. The Model S 85D is about $5,000 more than the base model, but the P85D dropped from about $120k to $104,500 thanks to a bunch of standard option removals on the new model. These are all now additional options rather than standards.
“One of the significant actions we intend to take in order to reduce manufacturing complexity,” Tesla said in its shareholder letter, “is to simplify our product offering by reducing the number of options and powertrain combinations. This will enhance our ability to scale production in 2015.”
