Connect with us

News

Tesla launches discounts for Model S and Model X in China

Tesla/Weibo

Published

on

Tesla China has rolled out an inventory car purchase incentive for the Model S sedan and Model X SUV. As per an announcement on the company’s official Weibo page, the Model S and Model X line in China can be acquired at discounted prices. 

As per a graphic posted by Tesla China, the Model S Long Range could now be purchased for RMB 773,900 ($106,690), while the Model S Plaid, the electric vehicle maker’s best-performing car in its lineup today, could be purchased for RMB 988,900 ($136,330). 

For comparison, Tesla China’s official website lists the Model S Long Range with a price of RMB 808,900 ($111,515), while the Model S Plaid is listed on the country’s online configurator with a price of RMB 1,028,900 ($141,844). 

The Model X also received some discounts from the electric vehicle maker. As per Tesla’s poster on Weibo, the Model X Long Range could be purchased the RMB 863,900 ($119,097). The Model X Plaid, an all-electric SUV with comparable performance as supercars on the quarter-mile, could be acquired for a discounted price of RMB 1,013,900 ($139,776).

On Tesla China’s official website, the Model X Long Range is listed with a price of RMB 898,900 ($123,922) and the Model X Plaid is listed with a price of RMB 1,058,900 ($145,980). 

Tesla China’s recently shared poster on Weibo listed a number of other incentives for buyers of the Model S and Model X. As per the graphic, if a Model S or Model X is purchased on the recommendation of someone else, the customer will receive an additional RMB 7,000 incentive ($965), free Supercharging for 3 or 6 years, and 90 days of free Enhanced Autopilot (EAP) access. The referrer will receive 48,000 bonus points that can be redeemed for Supercharging miles as well. 

The Tesla Model S and Model X do not sell as many units as their more affordable stablemates, the Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover. Despite their relatively low sales figures in comparison to the two mainstream EVs, the Model S and Model X are important parts of Tesla’s lineup. This is because they represent the best that the electric vehicle maker has to offer today. 

Advertisement
-->

Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

Advertisement
Comments

Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s X goes down as users report major outage Friday morning

Error messages and stalled loading screens quickly spread across the service, while outage trackers recorded a sharp spike in user reports.

Published

on

Credit: Linda Yaccarino/X

Elon Musk’s X experienced an outage Friday morning, leaving large numbers of users unable to access the social media platform.

Error messages and stalled loading screens quickly spread across the service, while outage trackers recorded a sharp spike in user reports.

Downdetector reports

Users attempting to open X were met with messages such as “Something went wrong. Try reloading,” often followed by an endless spinning icon that prevented access, according to a report from Variety. Downdetector data showed that reports of problems surged rapidly throughout the morning.

As of 10:52 a.m. ET, more than 100,000 users had reported issues with X. The data indicated that 56% of complaints were tied to the mobile app, while 33% were related to the website and roughly 10% cited server connection problems. The disruption appeared to begin around 10:10 a.m. ET, briefly eased around 10:35 a.m., and then returned minutes later.

Credit: Downdetector

Previous disruptions

Friday’s outage was not an isolated incident. X has experienced multiple high-profile service interruptions over the past two years. In November, tens of thousands of users reported widespread errors, including “Internal server error / Error code 500” messages. Cloudflare-related error messages were also reported.

In March 2025, the platform endured several brief outages spanning roughly 45 minutes, with more than 21,000 reports in the U.S. and 10,800 in the U.K., according to Downdetector. Earlier disruptions included an outage in August 2024 and impairments to key platform features in July 2023.

Continue Reading

News

Tesla wins top loyalty and conquest honors in S&P Global Mobility 2025 awards

The electric vehicle maker secured this year’s “Overall Loyalty to Make,” “Highest Conquest Percentage,” and “Ethnic Loyalty to Make” awards.

Published

on

Credit: Tesla Malaysia/X

Tesla emerged as one of the standout winners in the 2025 S&P Global Mobility Automotive Loyalty Awards, capturing top honors for customer retention and market conquest.

The electric vehicle maker secured this year’s “Overall Loyalty to Make,” “Highest Conquest Percentage,” and “Ethnic Loyalty to Make” awards.

Tesla claims loyalty crown

According to S&P Global Mobility, Tesla secured its 2025 “Overall Loyalty to Make” award following a late-year shift in consumer buying patterns. This marked the fourth consecutive year Tesla has received the honor. S&P Global Mobility’s annual analysis reviewed 13.6 million new retail vehicle registrations in the U.S. from October 2024 through September 2025, as noted in a press release.

In addition to overall loyalty, Tesla also earned the “Highest Conquest Percentage” award for the sixth consecutive year, highlighting the company’s continued ability to attract customers away from competing brands. This achievement is particularly notable given Tesla’s relatively small vehicle lineup, which is largely dominated by just two models: the Model 3 and Model Y.

Ethnic market strength and conquest

Tesla also captured top honors for “Ethnic Market Loyalty to Make,” a category that highlighted especially strong retention among Asian and Hispanic households. According to the analysis, Tesla achieved loyalty rates of 63.6% among Asian households and 61.9% among Hispanic households. These figures exceeded national averages.

S&P Global Mobility executives noted that loyalty margins across categories were exceptionally narrow in 2025, underscoring the significance of Tesla’s wins in an increasingly competitive market. Joe LaFeir, President of Mobility Business Solutions at S&P Global Mobility, shared his perspective on this year’s results.

“For 30 years, this analysis has provided a fact-based measure of brand health, and this year’s results are particularly telling. The data shows the market is not rewarding just one type of strategy. Instead, we see sustained, high-level performance from manufacturers with broad portfolios. In the current market, retaining customers remains a critical performance indicator for the industry,” LaFeir said.

Advertisement
-->
Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft is heading to jury trial

The ruling keeps alive claims that OpenAI misled the Tesla CEO about its charitable purpose while accepting billions of dollars in funding.

Published

on

Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

OpenAI Inc. and Microsoft will face a jury trial this spring after a federal judge rejected their efforts to dismiss Elon Musk’s lawsuit, which accuses the artificial intelligence startup of abandoning its original nonprofit mission. The ruling keeps alive claims that OpenAI misled the Tesla CEO about its charitable purpose while accepting billions of dollars in funding.

As noted in a report from Bloomberg News, a federal judge in Oakland, California, ruled that OpenAI Inc. and Microsoft failed to show that Musk’s claims should be dismissed. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers stated that while the evidence remains unclear, Musk has maintained that OpenAI “had a specific charitable purpose and that he attached two fundamental terms to it: that OpenAI be open source and that it would remain a nonprofit — purposes consistent with OpenAI’s charter and mission.”

Judge Gonzalez Rogers also rejected an argument by OpenAI suggesting that Musk’s use of an intermediary to donate $38 million in seed money to the company stripped him of legal standing. “Holding otherwise would significantly reduce the enforcement of a large swath of charitable trusts, contrary to the modern trend,” Judge Gonzalez Rogers wrote.

The judge also declined to dismiss Musk’s fraud allegations, citing internal OpenAI communications from 2017 involving co-founder Greg Brockman. In an email cited by the judge, fellow OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis informed Musk that Brockman would “like to continue with the non-profit structure.”

Advertisement
-->

Just two months later, however, Brockman wrote in a private note that he “cannot say that we are committed to the non-profit. don’t want to say that we’re committed. if three months later we’re doing b-corp then it was a lie.”

Marc Toberoff, a member of Musk’s legal team, said Judge Gonzalez Rogers’s ruling confirms that “there is substantial evidence that OpenAI’s leadership made knowingly false assurances to Mr. Musk about its charitable mission that they never honored in favor of their personal self-enrichment.”

OpenAI, for its part, maintained that Musk’s legal efforts are baseless. In a statement, the AI startup said it is looking forward to the upcoming trial. “Mr. Musk’s lawsuit continues to be baseless and a part of his ongoing pattern of harassment, and we look forward to demonstrating this at trial. We remain focused on empowering the OpenAI Foundation, which is already one of the best-resourced nonprofits ever,” OpenAI stated.

Continue Reading