For years, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been promising an affordable electric vehicle, likely priced at $25,000, as a way to broaden the appeal of plug-in vehicles.
He first mentioned it in a 2018 interview with YouTuber Marques Brownlee, saying “a $25,000 car, that’s something we can do.” Then in 2020, at the company’s first Battery Day event, he speculated that Tesla could eventually produce upward of 20 million of these vehicles in a year — or roughly twice the current production of Toyota, GM, or Volkswagen.
Things started to accelerate last year at Tesla’s shareholder event, where the company’s executives spoke about a specialized manufacturing technique that they called the “Unboxed Process.” This breakthrough would allow Tesla to dramatically reduce the cost of manufacturing, enabling it to sell a vehicle at the $25,000 price point.
The next-gen vehicle will likely be a crossover or hatchback and could feature design elements lifted from the Tesla Cybertruck. But moreover, it would be the fulfillment of a promise made years ago to make EVs more affordable to the masses.
Elon Musk makes a lot of promises, some of which he can’t keep. Let’s hope this isn’t one of them.
Apr 23
Umar Shakir
A cheaper Tesla is back on the menu
Image: Tesla
Tesla says it will build more affordable electric vehicles — perhaps as soon as 2025 — refuting recent reports that Tesla CEO Elon Musk had canceled plans for a cheaper “Model 2” vehicle in favor of getting a robotaxi out the door. But Musk didn’t clarify whether the lower-cost EV would be a brand new model for Tesla or simplified versions of its current vehicles.
“In terms of a new product roadmap, there’s been a lot of talk,” Musk said during the company’s first quarter earnings call, addressing the concerns investors have expressed over the past month about the delayed plans for a low-cost EV. “We’ve updated our future vehicle lineup to accelerate the launch of new models.” Musk said we might see the vehicles in early 2025, if not later this year.
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Apr 5
Andrew J. Hawkins
Elon Musk says Tesla will reveal its robotaxi on August 8th
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Tesla will reveal its long-promised robotaxi on August 8th, Elon Musk just posted on X. The forthcoming autonomous vehicle is said to be built on Tesla’s next-generation vehicle platform.
The announcement came on the same day that Reuters reported that the company had canceled its plans to build a more affordably priced electric vehicle, said to be in the range of $25,000. Musk reportedly told employees that instead of building a mass-market EV, he wanted to focus completely on an autonomous vehicle that would make other vehicles obsolete.
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Apr 5
Andrew J. Hawkins
Tesla reportedly abandons plans to make a less expensive $25,000 electric vehicle
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The Tesla Model 2 may be no more.
According to Reuters, Elon Musk has canceled the company’s plans to build a low-cost electric vehicle in favor of going all in on a robotaxi. The news outlet, citing three sources in the know, said the decision was communicated to employees during an all-hands meeting in late February.
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Apr 2
Wes Davis
Tesla’s year-over-year sales dropped for the first time since 2020
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Tesla delivered 386,810 vehicles this quarter, falling short of its fourth quarter 2023 deliveries by nearly 100,000 and marking a year-over-year sales drop from Q1 2023’s 422,875 vehicles. As Bloomberg notes, the company hasn’t delivered fewer vehicles than the same prior-year period since 2020 and hasn’t delivered under 400,000 vehicles in a quarter since Q3 2022.
Tesla blamed the decline partially on “the early phase of the production ramp of the updated Model 3 at our Fremont factory,” as well as shipping delays resulting from Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea and the arson at its Berlin factory. The company had earlier predicted slowed 2024 growth as it prepared to begin new vehicle production in 2025.
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Jan 25
Andrew J. Hawkins
Tesla warns of sales growth slowdown as it prepares for next-gen launch in late 2025
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Tesla reported earnings of $7.9 billion in net income on $25.2 billion in revenue during the fourth quarter of 2023. The figures represent an increase in revenue, up from $24.3 billion the same time last year. The company added that its vehicle volume growth rate in 2024 “may be notably lower” than it was in 2023 as it works to launch Tesla’s next-gen vehicle.
Responding to a question about its next-gen vehicles during the earnings call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company is targeting production “towards the end of 2025” but warned of delays due to the complexities of the manufacturing process. “We are focused on bringing the next generation platform to market as quickly as we can, with the plan to start production at Gigafactory Texas,” Tesla said in a note to shareholders. “This platform will revolutionize how vehicles are manufactured.”
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Jan 24
Jon Porter
Tesla’s new compact crossover is reportedly coming in 2025, but will it cost $25,000?
Image: Tesla
Tesla is eying a June 2025 kickoff for production of a new mass-market compact crossover, Reuters reports. The company has apparently invited suppliers to bid to work on the car, and is forecasting producing 10,000 vehicles weekly.
Following publication of this story, Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to a question about “next-generation platform vehicles” during an earnings call by saying production would start “towards the end of 2025.” He also said the first manufacturing location for the company’s next-gen vehicle would be in Austin, Texas. No specifics on the features or pricing of the vehicles were offered, and Musk warned that his timeline “should be taken with a grain of salt” due to the complexities of developing new manufacturing technologies. “You have to design a machine that has never existed to build a car in a way that has never existed,” added Musk.
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Sep 14, 2023
Umar Shakir
Tesla’s new car-building process could be a huge industrial breakthrough
Photo by Loren Grush / The Verge
Tesla is closing in on a new manufacturing process that could significantly reduce costs and increase production of its electric vehicles. According to sources who spoke to Reuters, the new process will enable the automaker to die-cast almost the entire vehicle underbody as a single piece instead of building out about 400 parts using conventional car-building techniques.
Tesla’s current process to build its popular Model Y SUV already involves a unique use of massive, ultra-high pressure presses that can mold both the front and rear parts of the vehicle. Tesla calls this process “gigacasting,” which some experts say is already highly efficient and cost-effective compared to other automakers’ factories. But now Tesla is looking to up the ante.
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Sep 8, 2023
Tom Warren
Tesla’s $25,000 ‘next-generation car’ will have a Cybertruck design
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Tesla is reportedly preparing to build a $25,000 electric car built on the company’s next-generation engineering platform. Axios reports that Elon Musk biographer Walter Isaacson has detailed the plan to build a $25,000 electric car alongside an autonomous robotaxi that could ferry passengers around.
The $25,000 car reportedly has a futuristic design like the long-delayed Cybertruck — the angular pickup truck that Tesla first revealed in 2019. The Cybertruck will supposedly begin production this year, with production-at-scalebeginning in 2024.
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Mar 2, 2023
Andrew J. HawkinsandUmar Shakir
Elon Musk unveils a new Master Plan, a path to sustainable energy future, but no new cars
Elon Musk revealed the third part of Tesla’s “Master Plan,” in which the company will lead the global effort to eliminate fossil fuels and convert the world to sustainable energy. The plan was outlined during an investor event Wednesday held at the company’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas.
Master Plan 3 includes adding renewable power to the existing grid, producing more electric vehicles, installing heat pumps in homes and buildings, using high-temperature heat delivery and hydrogen for industrial applications, and building sustainably fueled planes and boats. Musk’s plan is to create “a sustainable energy civilization.”
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Sep 22, 2020
Andrew J. Hawkins
Tesla’s Elon Musk said a $25,000 electric car with next-gen battery in the works
Tesla announced that it will dramatically reduce the cost of its battery cells and packs — which means the company’s new goal is a $25,000 electric car. The company’s CEO Elon Musk said its new “tabless” battery cells, as well as by changing the materials inside the cell, will allow Tesla to “halve” the price per kilowatt-hour, which will make electric cars roughly the same price as combustion engine ones.
The price per kilowatt-hour (kWh) is the unit of energy most commonly used to measure the capacity of the battery packs in modern electric vehicles. Those prices have been falling dramatically over the last decade, from $1,100/kWh in 2010 to $156/kWh in 2019, a drop of 87 percent.
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