Electric vehicle prices are down 18% so far this month compared to April 2023. With most automakers launching aggressive discounts, many EVs are on fire sale right now. Some are even being offered for five-figure discounts.

Automakers are introducing aggressive EV price cuts

After slashing prices throughout last year, Tesla’s best-selling Model 3 and Model Y are still dragging down overall EV prices.

“Notably, lower EV prices have supported EV sales volumes in the US, particularly for key Tesla models,” Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of Industry Insights at Cox Automotive, explained.

According to new data, EV prices are down 18.3% in April 2024, while non-EV prices are 13.1% lower than last year.

Seasonally adjusted prices are also down in all major market segments. Compact cars led the way (17.1%), followed by midsize (16%), pickups (15%), and SUVs (14%).

Electric vehicles led the way, with many automakers offering double-digit percentage discounts to clear inventory for new models. For example, Ford cut Mach-E prices by up to $8,100 in March.

Ford also opened orders for the 2024 F-150 Lightning this week while introducing new price cuts on the EV pickup of up to $5,500.

Volkswagen is offering $13,000 off the 2023 ID.4 AWD Pro S with a new lease deal to make room for the new 2024 model.

Hyundai slashed prices on the IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 6 earlier this year, undercutting much of the competition. Hyundai (including Kia) also has six of the top ten most fuel-efficient EVs in the US.

BMW recently introduced new rebates ranging from $5,000 to $7,500 this month on 2024 models. Nissan is offering nearly $16,000 off the Ariya electric SUV. The Mercedes EQS is $19,442 lower than its average price of $104,747.

On average, electric vehicle discounts reached nearly $6,000 in the first quarter. According to Cox Automotive data, average EV transaction prices slipped 9% compared to Q1 2023 and 3.8% from last quarter.

The data shows that the average price paid for an electric car in the US in March was $54,021, while the average transaction price for all vehicles was $47,735.

With Tesla increasing Model 3 prices, EV prices increased slightly this month. The average Model 3 price was $46,169, down 5.6% year over year but up 6.7% from last month. Overall incentives on the Model 3 were 8.2% of ATP, or $3,778.

Tesla was on the higher side, with overall incentives at 11.8% of ATP in March. However, it still trailed behind Polestar (14.4%) and Lucid (13.6%).

Jeff Bezos wants to build permanent outposts on the moon and colonize space. Richard Branson wants to make spaceflight as commonplace as air travel. Elon Musk wants to settle Mars to make humanity multiplanetary.

IBX’s Kam Ghaffarian wants to go even further: the stars.

“There’s this common denominator of combining altruism, to do something purposeful and good, and combine it with capitalism to make a positive impact,” he told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. “The vision for IBX is protecting our home, our planet, and then finding new homes and stars and everything involved to do that. So, on the space side, if we say that the ultimate destiny for humanity is interstellar travel, and going to the stars, then we need to take a lot of intermediary steps to do that.”

It might sound farfetched if it wasn’t for his track record. Ghaffarian has been instrumental in ushering in the new space economy, having co-founded and invested in a cadre of commercial space ventures.

Publicly traded Intuitive Machines, where Ghaffarian is co-founder and executive chairman, recently made history when its Odysseus spacecraft successfully landed on the moon, becoming the first commercial lander to do so.

Ghaffarian is also the co-founder and chairman of Axiom Space, which now regularly sends private astronauts on commercial missions to the International Space Station — the first company allowed to connect modules and provide full-service missions to the ISS — as it works to build its own space station.

With Quantum Space, where he’s also the executive chairman, the focus is on deep space commerce and communication through a superhighway of satellites stretching from earth orbit to the moon and beyond; X-Energy, which he founded, has developed operating nuclear reactors that it says are “designed to be intrinsically safe,” as well as nuclear propulsion capabilities.

His family office, IBX (which stands for “Imagine, Believe, Execute”) sits at the center of this space exploration constellation.

“We’ve got to do all the intermediate steps. I’m with Elon [Musk] and Jeff [Bezos], both my dear friends, to be able to first do the LEO [low earth orbit], be able to go to the moon and Mars, because we’ve got to do those before we can go interstellar,” Ghaffarian explained on CNBC’s Manifest Space podcast.

Unlike other high-profile billionaires building commercial space companies, Ghaffarian made his fortune through the space industry, and rather than focusing on access to space, he’s leveraging those falling costs to build out infrastructure and business activities in space.

The Iran-born entrepreneur, who emigrated to the U.S. some four and a half decades ago, co-founded a government services company called Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies that became a top contractor for NASA before KBR acquired it in 2018.

“If you create a company that is fantastic, and you develop unbelievable technologies, but nobody wants to buy it, or there is no business case, then you will have not made any difference,” Ghaffarian said. “How do you create a business model where you are purposeful, you’re making a difference, but also … can provide return to the investors in a massive way?”

Ghaffarian believes the space economy will be worth trillions of dollars — and sooner than many realize. He sees the technological leaps forward in artificial intelligence and quantum computing as crucial to unlocking the full potential of space.

He said microgravity-based pharmaceutical research and industrial manufacturing, sustainable propulsion and energy sources, and the building out of lunar infrastructure will be some of the capabilities and services in greater demand in the coming years.

“It’s normal for people to not quite appreciate it. …. When did people appreciate the AI revolution — 10 years ago? Not really, right? And all of a sudden, now we have this herd mentality that everybody’s jumping in” said Ghaffarian, who also cited the early days of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Tesla and SpaceX, even air travel, as templates for the space world. “I think we are in the beginning of that in this space exploration and space ecosystem, space economy, and it’s still not there, but my belief is that it is taking off and it’s going to grow rapidly, and I truly believe that they’re underestimating the size of the market.”

As investors catch on, the space billionaire’s ventures will continue to shoot for the stars.

According to a recent post from XPeng chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng, the automaker’s self-driving ADAS navigation-guided pilot (NGP) is being tested on German roads and showing “great promise,” leading the way for an XNGP rollout throughout Europe.

XPeng Motors ($XPEV) operates as a growing name in the automotive industry, mostly because of its EVs and expansions to new global markets such as Europe. That being said, another impressive facet of technology XPeng has continued to improve over the years is its Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS), which it initially called navigation guided pilot, or NGP.

The driver assist features were originally only applied to highway driving scenarios before XPeng expanded the systems to operate on more congested urban roads with City NGP.

After sharing impressive drive footage of City NGP, XPeng began piloting its next phase in self-driving – XNGP. When it fully launched in March 2023, XPeng heralded it as “the most advanced and capable in China.” Eat your heart out Tesla.

Since then, XPeng Motors has been quickly rolling out self-driving XNGP access to drivers in China, and it is now available in 259 different cities, with more on the way while it beta tests a new feature called Valet AI.

Meanwhile, across the pond, XPeng Motors continues to introduce more and more new all-electric models and is taking the next steps to roll NGP out to those customers as well.

XPeng Highway NGP is near ready for Europe

XPeng founder, chairman, and CEO He Xiaopeng shared encouraging test footage on XPeng NGP in Germany in a LinkedIn post today, stating that the process has shown great promise and XNGP is nearly road-ready for Europe. Per the post:

Extensively tested in China, our ADAS software has proved that it can smoothly operate abroad, another step towards our goal of making advanced smart driving accessible worldwide.

Thanks to the dedication of our colleagues all over the world and the support of our car owners.

Meanwhile, we are proud that our industry-leading XNGP ADAS is now available in 259 cities in China with more planned; while our much-anticipated AI Valet Driver function is under beta testing.

The video footage you can view in the link above shows an XPeng EV safely navigating German highways hands-free, recognizing passing cars, and easily overtaking a large semi-truck, all at speeds between 75 and 120 km (47-75 mph).

Xiaopeng also shared that XPeng intends to share more details of NGP’s progress in Europe during the Beijing Autoshow, which begins next week.