Tesla hit the brakes on its store closure plan, rescuing many of the outlets it promised to close just 2 weeks ago

AP Photo/David Zalubowski

Buyers look over a Model S P100 D in a Tesla store in Cherry Creek Mall in Denver.

• Tesla announced on Sunday that it's shuttering significantly fewer stores than it previously announced.
• Only two weeks ago, the electric vehicle firm said it was closing most of its stores and moving to an online-only sales model so it can slash vehicle prices by 6%.
• Now it will only lower prices by 3% to save some stores.

Tesla has hit the brakes on its plan to shutter its stores and slash the price of its cars.

At the end of February, Tesla announced it was closing the majority of its physical stores and moving to an online sales model in an effort to make its cars more affordable.

"Shifting all sales online, combined with other ongoing cost efficiencies, will enable us to lower all vehicle prices by about 6% on average, allowing us to achieve the $35,000 Model 3 price point earlier than we expected," the company announced.

On Sunday, however, the company announced it would be keeping more stores open than expected.

"Over the past two weeks we have been closely evaluating every single Tesla retail location, and we have decided to keep significantly more stores open than previously announced as we continue to evaluate them over the course of several months," Tesla said in a statement.

Read more: 'It feels like a morgue': Tesla employees say morale has fallen drastically as stores close and workers are let go

Keeping more stores open will mean re-upping the price of its cars.

"As a result of keeping significantly more stores open, Tesla will need to raise vehicle prices by about 3% on average worldwide. In other words, we will only close about half as many stores, but the cost savings are therefore only about half," the firm said.

Tesla added that the price hike won't come into effect until March 18.

The electric car company was eager to stress it's still moving to an online-only sales model, despite keeping more stores open.

"To be clear, all sales worldwide will still be done online, in that potential Tesla owners coming in to stores will simply be shown how to order a Tesla on their phone," it said, adding that stores will carry a small inventory of cars so customers can drive away with a car straight away.

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