Tesla boss Elon Musk has been making headlines for a long time, especially with his escapades on and around Twitter, which he renamed X. But now it's finally about a real Tesla topic again: namely the first Tesla for the entry-level segment. So it's the first really cheap electric car from Tesla.
Reuters reports that Tesla plans to produce a completely new vehicle model for the mass market from mid-2025. Tesla informed its suppliers of this. The new model will be codenamed “Redwood”. Reuters claims to have learned this from four people familiar with the matter. Two of these informants describe the new entry-level model as a compact crossover, i.e. a mixture of SUV and sedan. This would confirm older reports.
Tesla sent “requests” or tenders for the “Redwood” model to suppliers last year and forecast a weekly production volume of 10,000 vehicles, according to two of the sources. Production would begin in June 2025, three of the sources said, according to Reuters.
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Model 2 aka $25,000 car
There have been rumors about the “cheap” Tesla since 2020 or 2021, but things have been quiet about this cheaper model for some time. But Elon Musk has now confirmed in a conversation about Tesla's quarterly results that Tesla actually wants to start production of the new model at its factory in Texas in the second half of 2025. Tesla would later also produce the new model in Mexico and in another plant outside of North America. There is talk of a factory in India, but also of the possibility of producing a cheaper model in the Tesla factory in Grünheide in Germany.
Musk did not comment on the price of the new entry-level model. In the rumor mill, however, there is usually talk of a price around 25,000 US dollars. There is also a persistent rumor that these could also be self-driving robotaxis. It would probably be a common new platform on which both the robot taxi and the entry-level vehicle would be based.
Tesla, like other North American and European electric car manufacturers, is under strong price and development pressure exerted by Asian and especially Chinese electric car manufacturers. Because brands like BYD are constantly bringing out new electric models at ever lower prices. BYD has long been the largest electric car manufacturer in the world.
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The high cost of batteries in particular makes it difficult to produce affordable electric cars.
Further reports on cheap electric cars:
