The electric vehicle giant Tesla announced its all now Tesla Model 3 last week with the starting price of $35,000 has attracted many people’s attentions. People were lining up outside Tesla stores overnight just trying to pre-order the Model 3 and this is something that never happen in car industry before. It is common to see people lining up for the latest Apple product, but why people start lining for cars? The number of pre-orders reached 276,000 orders within in three days after the Model 3 was unveiled. Even Elon Musk was surprised by its success and said “thought it would slow way down today, but the Tesla Model 3 order counts is now at 198k. Recommend ordering soon as the wait time is growing rapidly.”
In my opinion, it is definitely a good trend towards environmental protection since carbon emission of vehicles is considered one of the most damaging pollutant to our environment. However, the reasons why the introduction of Tesla Model 3 is such a huge success so far, I believe it is mainly due to its choice of target market. Unlike model S which the starting price is $90,900, the Model 3 is more financially feasible for younger demographics. More specifically, there are four main reasons, first, car is almost essential for everyone nowadays, every young professionals and new graduates all want to have their own car. Second, for most young professionals and new graduates, most of them want to be a green consumer because after years of study they know it is a right thing to do but sometimes budget affect their decision. Third, speaking of car, every brand has its own value and social representation, (for example, BMW represents young and power whereas Mercedes represents luxury and comfortable driving experience) the introduction of Model S has positioned Tesla in the high-end tier (implicate high quality and high earning power), and such positioning has leveraged the Model 3 in some degree despite it is only a $35,000 Tesla car. Lastly, I believe for most innovator or earlier adaptor $35,000 is a magical number that they are willing to pay for and take risks just for having the first-hand experiences of driving the Model 3.
Furthermore, speaking from sustainability marketing, I am glad to see companies’ are promoting behavioral changes that is environmentally friendly. The Tesla Model 3’s situation is the best example of how a company can promote environmentally friendly behaviors without scarifying its revenue stream.
