But his feedback in January of this 12 months recommended the mainstream car, dubbed the Model 2 by Tesla followers on social media, was on a again burner.
“We are not currently working on a $25,000 car,” Musk mentioned in response to a query on the earnings name for fourth-quarter 2021. “At some point we will. But we have enough on our plate right now — too much on our plate, frankly.”
Musk has gone forwards and backwards through the years on prioritizing a cheap Tesla.
For most of this 12 months, Musk has promoted robotaxis as a greater reply to cheap transportation than private automobile possession. In April, he mentioned Tesla would construct a devoted robotaxi mannequin with out driver controls for quantity manufacturing in 2024.
Analysts took Musk’s feedback final week as a reference to his robotaxi venture. George Gianarikas, Canaccord Genuity managing director, informed Yahoo Finance that the robotaxi platform may promote adoption of EVs globally because of its sharply decrease manufacturing prices.
Still, Tesla followers speculated on social media that there could possibly be a driver-controlled car approaching the brand new platform, particularly if Tesla’s self-driving software program is just not prepared for robotaxi deployment by 2024.
“I’m glad to see Tesla is focused on this new platform for a cheaper vehicle once again after Elon said they weren’t working on it,” mentioned Ryan Shaw, a YouTube content material creator with 203,000 subscribers who focuses on Tesla information and evaluation. “But I personally don’t think this vehicle might be what people think it is.”
Musk has not supplied any extra particulars on the brand new platform, and Tesla has disbanded its press workplace.
The platform might be supposed for the robotaxi, Shaw mentioned, reasonably than human-operated Teslas. However, one twist could possibly be that Tesla realizes that it must also use the platform to construct and promote a Model 2 with human controls whereas robotaxi points are being labored out.
“My guess though is that Tesla will end up needing to change this platform a tad and sell a more affordable vehicle that can also be driven,” Shaw mentioned in a video final week.
Source: europe.autonews.com
