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‘Average Americans’ can’t afford EVs: Former White House official, others rip Buttigieg
The all-too-common myth that electric vehicles are not affordable to the average American is now being reignited by former Trump White House Communications Official Mercedes Schlapp, among others, who ripped Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for suggesting that the answer to rising gas prices was to buy an electric car.
Sec. Buttigieg appeared on MSNBC on Sunday to suggest that American consumers can avoid soaring gas prices by purchasing an electric vehicle. Buttigieg said to Jonathan Capehart in an interview on “The Sunday Show” that EV owners will have a “$12,500 discount” thanks to the new EV incentive plan that was included in the House-passed “Build Back Better” plan from President Joe Biden. While only the Chevrolet Bolt EV will qualify for the full $12,500 amount, nearly every EV built in the United States will qualify for a $7,500 tax credit.
Buttigieg also went on to say that those in rural areas would be most likely to benefit from the purchase of an EV. “The people who stand to benefit most from owning an EV are often rural residents who have the most distances to drive, who burn the most gas, and underserved urban residents in areas where there are higher gas prices and lower-income,” Buttigieg claimed. “They would gain the most by having that vehicle. These are the very residents who have not always been connected to electric vehicles that are viewed as kind of a luxury item.”
Transportation Sec. Buttigieg: Buy an EV and ‘never worry about gas prices again’
However, not everyone was a fan of Buttigieg’s suggestion to transition to EVs. Former White House Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp said that EVs are not widely affordable, and only people “in the world that Pete Buttigieg lives in” can afford them. “Average Americans struggling with record-high gas prices? Not so much,” she added.
“Let me assure you there is very little overlap between ‘families that can afford to buy a $50,000 electric car,” Amy Swearer of the Heritage Foundation said. “And ‘families that are worried about gas prices because an extra $50 a month is actually a week’s worth of groceries.’ Do you know what a lot of families could do with that extra $50 a month/$1300 a year?” Swearer added according to the New York Post.
Kelley Blue Book lists the average transaction price in October 2021 for a new vehicle at $46,036, with Tesla offering an average price of $54,560. It should be noted that Tesla has two Model 3 variants under the average $54,560 price. The Model Y’s Long Range variant is available for slightly more at $58,990. However, these prices are before factoring in federal incentives, gas savings, and money saved through lack of maintenance. If the minimum $7,500 EV tax credit were available right now, all but one of Tesla’s five mass-market vehicle variants would fall under the average cost of a Tesla vehicle. The Model 3’s Rear Wheel Drive and Long Range All-Wheel Drive configurations would cost less than the national average for a new car. Tesla vehicles would qualify for $8,000 in incentives: $7,500 for being built in the U.S. and an additional $500 for equipping a U.S.-made battery.
Now, if we factor in other vehicles in the United States, the Chevrolet Bolt, which has had production suspended until 2022 due to battery malfunctions, has several sub-$30,000 variants available. Ford’s Mustang Mach-E starts at $42,895 and can go as low as $35,395 after incentives. Three of Ford’s four Mach-E variants would fall under KBB’s $46,036 average price after incentives.
Unfortunately, politicians with widespread media coverage are able to spread misinformation regarding the price of electric vehicles. Many EVs are available on the market today are actually extremely affordable. Even if the price of an EV is slightly higher than a gas car, owners can expect savings through missed trips to the gas pump and a lack of oil changes. But, after all, we’ve learned that the White House, at nearly any time and under nearly any administration, has missed the mark regarding EVs, and it has not been uncommon for politicians to spread information that is not necessarily accurate.
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Tesla has its answer to grow its automotive sales over the next few years, TD Cowen analyst Itay Michaeli says, but it just has to bring it to the U.S.
On Thursday, Michaeli reiterated his $490 price target and the ‘Buy’ rating he already held on Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA). However, its automotive division has struggled to show sequential growth over the past few years, mostly due to its focus on AI and Full Self-Driving. Tesla already axed two of its lower-volume vehicles with the Model S and Model X earlier this year.
However, Tesla does not need to engineer an entire new vehicle to trigger an upward tick in sales; it just has to bring it from China to the U.S., Michaeli said.
He is talking about the Model Y L, a slightly larger version of the all-electric crossover that is already available in China. U.S. customers have been pleading with CEO Elon Musk to bring it to the country since its launch in Asia last year, but he’s not convinced of it because of the advent of self-driving and its importance in this particular market.
The problem is that Tesla owners have been requesting something larger that could fit a typical American family. The Model Y L is slightly larger than the standard Model Y, but some are concerned that it could still be too small to fit what most people might need.
Instead, they have asked for a full-size SUV from Tesla.
Tesla gives big hint that it will build Cyber SUV, smaller Cybertruck
Nevertheless, the Model Y L still presents a great opportunity for Tesla in the U.S., and Michaeli says that there is an additional sales opportunity of about 100,000 units, with demand potential falling somewhere between 60,000 and 135,000 units.
TD Cowen’s note to investors also analyzed that Tesla’s growth could come from a stock perspective as well, positively impacting the stock price, as it has been widely reliant on vehicle sales, even though Tesla has truly phased itself away from that being an important metric.
Tesla stands to gain greatly from the introduction of the Model Y L in the U.S., but only if Elon Musk sees it as a viable fit for the market. Families may need to see Tesla bring something larger to the U.S., or they might be forced to buy from another automaker that offers something that fits is needs for more interior space to haul around the kids.
Tesla Hardware 3 owners are set to get a new Full Self-Driving version this month as the company plans to release what it is referring to as v14 Lite.
The rollout is not yet confirmed for June, but Tesla executives have stated on several occasions that this more refined FSD iteration will work with their cars and increase its capabilities.
This comes after Tesla admitted during its last Earnings Call that these Hardware 3 vehicles would not be able to achieve Full Self-Driving, something that they did not know when they bought these cars. We regularly receive messages from Hardware 3 owners asking when v14 Lite will come out, what they should expect, and whether it is worth it to upgrade the self-driving computer or buy a new car altogether.
Following future rollout of FSD V14 Lite for HW3 vehicles in the US, we plan on expanding V14 Lite to additional international markets.
This update ensures that HW3 vehicle owners will continue to benefit from ongoing software updates.
Since international rollout is subject to…
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 29, 2026
It is hard not to feel for them; Tesla CEO Elon Musk said at the company’s 2019 Autonomy Day that all vehicles produced at the time, including Hardware 3 cars, had “all the hardware necessary, compute and otherwise, for Full Self-Driving.”
Musk also said in March of that year that, “Anyone who purchased Full Self-Driving will get FSD computer upgrade for free.”
Anyone who purchased full self-driving will get FSD computer upgrade for free. This is the only change between Autopilot HW2.5 & HW3. Going forward “HW3” will just be called FSD Computer, which is accurate. No change to vehicle sensors or wire harness needed. This is v important. https://t.co/lICMpT7xnX
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 29, 2019
However, during the Q1 2026 Earnings Call, Musk admitted that Hardware 3 vehicles would not be capable of FSD, as “It has only 1/8th the memory bandwidth of Hardware 4, and memory bandwidth is one of the key elements needed for unsupervised FSD.”
Tesla has made some effort to remedy these Hardware 3 owners by offering:
- Discounted trade-ins toward AI4 cars
- Hardware retrofits, which would replace the self-driving computer and upgrade all cameras
- Full Self-Driving v14 Lite
The issue is that many of these owners were led to believe their cars would be capable of unsupervised self-driving. Now, they’re left scrambling for options, and while there are several, they will all require more money out of their pockets.
Expectations for Tesla v14 Lite for Hardware 3 Owners
The big differences between the AI4 v14 and v14 Lite for Hardware 3 owners will stem primarily from hardware constraints. Tesla developed v14 Lite with an optimized frame of mind; the v14 neural nets are toned down to run on an HW3 computer.
Tesla v14 will use the same behavior, but its limits will be hardware-related, especially given that the cameras on HW3 vehicles are lower-resolution.
Tesla reveals its plans for Hardware 3 owners who are eager for updates
This will result in potentially more edge cases due to the lower quality perception and less long-range detection, but reaction time and overall confidence should be more refined.
There should also be a handful of additional features that are available on AI4 cars, such as:
- Starting Full Self-Driving from Park
- Auto Shift
- Streaks
- Speed Profiles
- Improved Dynamics, like Pulling Over for Emergency Vehicles
Tesla plans to release v14 Lite this month, but we are all familiar with how the company can be with timelines. Additionally, if v14 Lite has not proven to be ready for a wide release, Tesla will slam the brakes on the rollout.
We would anticipate that Tesla is testing v14 Lite internally, and likely has been for several months.
Elon Musk
SpaceXAI just launched into your kitchen with their new app
SpaceXAI just powered its first consumer app and it predicts what you want to buy.
SpaceXAI just made its first move into consumer AI, and it involves your grocery cart. On June 3, 2026, Gopuff and SpaceXAI announced the launch of Go, a Grok-powered shopping assistant built directly into the Gopuff app that predicts what you need before you even start searching for it.
Gopuff is an instant delivery platform that operates more than 400 micro-fulfillment centers across the U.S., delivering everyday essentials, snacks, drinks, and household items in as little as 15 minutes. It is not a restaurant delivery app or a marketplace. It owns its inventory, controls its warehouses, and handles its own logistics, which means it has built one of the most detailed consumer behavior datasets in retail over its 13-year history.
Go combines SpaceXAI’s advanced reasoning, voice, and image generation models with Gopuff’s dataset of hundreds of millions of orders and real-time cultural signals from X to prepare a suggested cart the moment a customer opens the app. It learns each shopper’s habits and automatically builds a personalized cart based on time of day, location, order history, and real-time indicators. Returning customers can check out with a single tap.
Rather than searching for specific items, users can describe a situation like a game-day party or the desire for a healthy breakfast and Go will assemble a cart automatically. It can also predict when shoppers are running low on items like coffee or paper towels and have them packed and delivered in under 15 minutes. Grok voice integration lets users talk to the app in plain conversational language and check out completely hands-free.
Gopuff co-founder and co-CEO Yakir Gola said: “Today, we believe the greatest friction left in commerce is not delivery or instantaneous access to the essentials customers need. It’s the moment before: the thinking, the deciding, the remembering. We’re combining Gopuff’s demand intelligence with xAI’s frontier reasoning to create an everyday shopping experience that feels like a true extension of you.”
Why SpaceX just made a $60 billion bet on AI coding ahead of historic IPO
The timing carries context beyond the product launch. SpaceXAI was formed after SpaceX completed an all-stock merger with Elon Musk’s xAI earlier this year, folding one of the most advanced AI labs in the world into the same corporate structure as the company preparing what could be the largest IPO in history. SpaceXAI is dipping into consumer-focused AI just as it prepares for its public debut, and while Musk has openly discussed building an everything app, this launch uses Grok to power another company’s product rather than launching a standalone consumer platform. Every consumer-facing deployment of Grok ahead of the IPO roadshow adds tangible evidence that SpaceXAI is not just an infrastructure play but a direct competitor in the AI application layer where OpenAI and Google are already fighting for dominance.
Tesla has its answer to auto growth, it just has to bring it to the U.S.: analyst
Tesla Hardware 3 owners could be made whole this month
