{"id":34511,"date":"2025-10-08T03:01:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T03:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/chinese-car-fans-are-weighing-in-on-elon-musks-new-affordable-offerings-beggar-model-tesla\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T03:01:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T03:01:22","slug":"chinese-car-fans-are-weighing-in-on-elon-musks-new-affordable-offerings-beggar-model-tesla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/chinese-car-fans-are-weighing-in-on-elon-musks-new-affordable-offerings-beggar-model-tesla\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese car fans are weighing in on Elon Musk&#8217;s new affordable offerings: &#8216;Beggar model&#8217; Tesla"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/68e5bbd8cc993f9955cfbce0?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Tesla&#039;s new energy electric vehicle store in Shanghai.\"\/><figcaption>&quot;The beggar&#039;s version of Tesla&#039;s Model Y costs 230,000 yuan. Will you buy it?&quot; one user wrote in a post on Weibo on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>CFOTO\/Future Publishing via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Chinese social media users are split on Tesla&#039;s new &quot;affordable&quot; offerings.<\/li>\n<li>The &quot;Model Y Standard&quot; and &quot;Model 3 Standard&quot; are about 10% cheaper than their premium versions.<\/li>\n<li>&quot;I have no idea who Tesla is trying to sell to,&quot; one user wrote on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Chinese social media users on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, have mixed views on Tesla&#039;s new budget-friendly models.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, Tesla announced affordable versions of the Model Y and Model 3. Unlike the premium versions, the standard models won&#039;t ship with key features like leather seats, a radio, a rear screen for passengers, and the &quot;Autosteer&quot; feature of Tesla&#039;s Autopilot software.<\/p>\n<p>The &quot;Model Y Standard&quot; and the &quot;Model 3 Standard&quot; cost $39,990 and $36,990, respectively. Both cars are about $5,000, or around 10% cheaper than their premium versions, and will be available starting next month.<\/p>\n<p>Some Chinese social media users, however, said they weren&#039;t enticed by Tesla&#039;s new offerings.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The beggar&#039;s version of Tesla&#039;s Model Y costs 230,000 yuan. Will you buy it?&quot; one user wrote on Tuesday in a post on Weibo, China&#039;s version of X. The post drew nearly 300 likes and comments.<\/p>\n<p>Other Weibo users said the prices of Tesla&#039;s budget models aren&#039;t as competitive as the EVs made by Chinese automakers.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#039;m definitely not buying them. For the same price, there are far more options I can get from local automakers,&quot; read one comment.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;For an extra 10,000 RMB, I can get the Li i6. Wouldn&#039;t that be a better deal?&quot; one user wrote, referencing an electric SUV made by Li Auto, a Chinese automaker.<\/p>\n<p>Some users, on the other hand, said the budget models may sell well.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;A lot of people will say they aren&#039;t interested, but Tesla could end up selling loads of them,&quot; one user commented.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I really want to get one, but I can&#039;t afford it,&quot; read one comment.<\/p>\n<p>Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.<\/p>\n<p>Some 100 automakers, including Tesla, have been locked in a brutal price war over China&#039;s EV market. Last year, Tesla said it was slashing the prices of its Model 3, S, X, and Y by 14,000 yuan, or about $1,930.<\/p>\n<p>Tesla&#039;s biggest rival in China, BYD, has been aggressively cutting its prices, though such tactics have hurt its bottom line. The company said in its August earnings report that its &quot;short-term profitability&quot; had been weighed down by &quot;excessive marketing&quot; and discounting.<\/p>\n<p>Several Chinese social media users also questioned the business logic behind Tesla&#039;s budget models.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;You can only save about 30,000 yuan if you buy the Model Y Standard. I have no idea who Tesla is trying to sell to,&quot; one user wrote in a post on Weibo.<\/p>\n<p>Another user said in a separate post that while Tesla was probably hoping to boost profits with the new vehicles, the 10% price drop is unlikely to help.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;This is a huge market. But instead of developing new designs and vehicles, they are looking into cost cutting. The Tesla of today is not the Tesla we once knew,&quot; read the post.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Tesla should just move their R&amp;D teams over to China. China is a more conducive environment for developing EVs, and we are a lot more efficient than the US,&quot; the post continued.<\/p>\n<p>Tesla CEO Elon Musk told investors during an earnings call in July that the &quot;biggest obstacle&quot; to EV ownership was the cars&#039; hefty price tag.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The desire to buy the car is very high, it&#039;s just people don&#039;t have enough money in their bank account to buy it,&quot; Musk said. &quot;Literally, that is the issue. Not a lack of desire, but a lack of ability. So, the more affordable we can make the car, the better.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Tesla&#039;s sales in China have been flagging. The EV giant sold 129,000 vehicles in China in the second quarter of 2025, down nearly 12% from the same period last year, per data from the China Passenger Car Association.<\/p>\n<p>Tesla shares fell by 4.4% on Tuesday, closing at $433.09. The company&#039;s shares are up over 7% year to date.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&quot;The beggar&#039;s version of Tesla&#039;s Model Y costs 230,000 yuan. Will you buy it?&quot; one user wrote in a post on Weibo on Tuesday. CFOTO\/Future Publishing via Getty Images Chinese social media users are split on Tesla&#039;s new &quot;affordable&quot; offerings. The &quot;Model Y Standard&quot; and &quot;Model 3 Standard&quot; are about 10% cheaper than their premium [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34512,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}