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After production of the futuristic Cybertruck pickup truck finally started in the USA in December after numerous delays, it looks like Tesla boss Elon Musk (52) will be able to focus on new projects again. According to Reuters news agency, the US electric car pioneer aims to start production of its long-awaited entry-level model “towards the end of 2025”.
However, when asked by US technology portal The Verge, Musk was more cautious: The announced date should be “treated with caution” due to the complexity of developing new production technologies. It seems that the Tesla boss urgently wants to avoid a fiasco like the one that happened with the Cybertruck, which only entered production about two years late. “We have to design a machine that has never existed before, build a car in a way that has never existed before,” Musk added.
Chinese surpassed Tesla
Repeatedly referred to by the media as the Baby Tesla, Model Q or Model 2, the entry-level crossover is intended to be based on an entirely newly developed platform and propel Tesla forward in the global race, particularly with fast-growing China. manufacturers (read more about the new baby Tesla here). After Tesla was at the top among the world’s largest electric car manufacturers for a long time, Chinese giant BYD narrowly surpassed the Americans for the first time in the last quarter of 2023. Last year, Tesla continues to stay ahead of BYD, which produced 1.6 million electric cars in 2023, with the production of 1.8 million electric cars. However, Tesla’s global dominance in the electric segment may end as early as 2024.
This is probably also due to the prices of Tesla electric cars: the cheapest Model 3 in the US currently costs at least $ 36,000, while BYD offers its Seagull mini electric car in the domestic market for the equivalent of 11,000 francs. Numerous other BYD models are also priced to be affordable for as many people as possible. In Europe, BYD already offers a variety of budget-friendly electric cars; In some countries, such as Sweden, the Chinese are already market leaders in electric cars.
Will you be stuck with the $25,000 car?
To attract lower-end customers, the new baby Tesla’s vehicle platform needs to cost only half the price of the next larger Model 3 platform. Musk has specifically mentioned the “$25,000 car” in the past. To achieve that price, the new entry-level model is likely to rely on cheap iron-phosphate batteries that may be supplied by rival BYD – be warned – the Chinese are also one of the world’s largest battery manufacturers. World. But as we now know, the eccentric Tesla boss’s statements should not be taken lightly: Musk once mentioned a $39,900 starting price for the Cybertruck. The cheapest version of the electric pickup currently starts at $60,990.
It is also still not entirely clear what the new entry-level model will look like. As part of its job posting in 2022, Tesla distributed a picture of a never-before-seen model via the Wechat network, which is popular in China. However, it is unclear to what extent the animation actually demonstrates a concrete design idea. What’s certain is that the hatchback compact will be somewhere between the Honda e and the VW ID.3 in size, meaning it won’t be longer than 4.30 meters. A newly released teaser image shows a silhouette on a black background, strongly reminiscent of the design of the current Model Y with its distinctive dome-shaped passenger cell. Elon Musk isn’t revealing any details about the design either, just this much: the new little one will be “super cool.”
Source: Blick
I’m Ella Sammie, author specializing in the Technology sector. I have been writing for 24 Instatnt News since 2020, and am passionate about staying up to date with the latest developments in this ever-changing industry.
