Sales and production of Model 3 is actually looking pretty awesome. Bringing in the $35k base model hits a major company mission objective, generates global headlines and scares the *sugar* out of the likes of GM and Ford! The closing of many expensive shopping mall stores makes sense too in making the lower cost models sustainable.
Price slashing high performance Model S and X is an interesting move. The P models were always considered to be over-priced toys for those with money to burn and now they are about to compete directly with the likes of the brand new Porsche Taycan. This bold move now leaves a major headache for Porsche in pricing up the various performance levels of the Taycan. The base price of the standard Model S/X hasn't really changed much and before the price cut they were actually starting to look very expensive with increasing finance rates (at least here in the UK). Now they will sell far more P models than ever before and less standard models. The cost of the more powerful rear P motor is probably peanuts in production and certainly nothing remotely like the £40k retail price difference before the price drop. All in all I think this is a clever way of upselling the S/X models, pushing most of their customers into the top spec models at a reduced premium. People who would have been in the market for a 75D only a couple of months ago will now be eyeing up the Performance models even though they are still considerably more expensive. Also let's not forget that the Model S is well into middle age on its product cycle, so boosting sales by effectively discounting upgrades is the obvious thing to do and happens all the time in the industry.
Anyway, yeah I think you are being too negative here! If the Model 3 wasn't selling and getting a slating in the press then it would be a very different story. But this looks like a big push to really penetrate the market in the shortest possible time while not losing money in the process.
