This strikes me another aggressive price discrimination move. The RWD Long Range 3 has been out the longest, so there should be 0 'pent up demand' for it. By getting rid of the RWD LR option and pushing all LR buyers into the AWD version (and Performance), they squeeze extra money out of buyers at the top end (assuming the profit margin is the same or higher on AWD models).

Then, they bring in this new mid-range model to try to shave off a few more short-range (SR) holdouts and push them into a more expensive model; maybe you weren't willing to pay $9k for the bigger battery (plus $5k for premium) but you can be talked into $5k for a bigger battery (plus $5k for premium, I presume).

It's also interesting how often they've changed the price on the AWD model; it's jumped up and down a thousand a bunch of times. There's no reason this couldn't be replicated by a manufacturer with a traditional dealer model, except the dealers would tend to be annoyed at having on-lot inventory that fluctuates in 'value', although I think traditionally dealers don't actually pay for their inventory until it sells, regardless. And obviously price messaging is harder in a dealership model.

The $35k Model 3 was always going to be the hardest to produce profitably; we're either not there yet, or Tesla sees no reason to produce the lowest profit margin vehicle until they absolutely have to. The backlog of US orders must be low enough that they may as well squeeze the remaining holdouts -- although the demand certainly doesn't seem to be tailing off too quickly.