anticitizen13.7
Not posting at TMC after 9/17/2018
They may have seen higher RWD 85 sales than expected after the 70D introduction. A lot of the luxury car buying public prefer their big sedans to be RWD. I know I have little to no need for AWD where I live. Realistically, I'd probably buy a RWD P85 again if it were an option.
The RWD preference seems to be a prestige holdover from ICE, since RWD implies more complication and therefore higher cost than FWD, and AWD is seen as adding weight and handling penalty in non-snow/rain conditions. A small but vocal group of car enthusiasts genuinely prefer the handling characteristics of RWD over AWD.
I think the addition of a base RWD Model S 70 is a great idea, as it makes getting a great Model S more accessible to buyers. I customized a nice Model S 70 with pano roof, metallic blue paint, autopilot, and winter package, which came out to 77.2k cash. With tax incentives, that falls to around 66 or 67k. That's within a couple of k of a BMW 5 535i (about 57k base), and pretty close to a BMW 5 hybrid (about 63k base). Model S looks even more favorable when the BMWs are optioned up.