Tesla Passes On $1000 Price Increase Thanks To Nickel Shortage

Tesla has just added $1,000 to the starting price of the Model 3 Long Range and Model Y Long Range models, and the reason this time seems pretty simple: a spike in the price of nickel. The metal is very important for Tesla since it is still used in the battery cathodes for its Long Range packs that equip the two aforementioned models.

For lower range versions of the Model 3 and Model Y, the price remains unchanged because they use a newer lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery chemistry adopted in the second half of 2021; Long Range models are still powered by nickel-cobalt-aluminum cells that, as the name suggests, require both nickel and cobalt, neither of which is needed for LFP packs.