- The very tuned of $ 25,000 at Tesla strikes, Family known as model 2 may not be built, hopes of fringent investors. Instead, future sales growth may have to come from a car without steering wheel or pedals – cybercab.
The biggest mystery surrounding the roadmap for Tesla’s product may have been lifted on Thursday, with news that came out of China who suggest that there may not be a model 2 after all.
First of all reported By local technology website 36 kr and later confirmed by ReutersTesla develops a low -cost version of the Y model, its best seller with around 1.1 million units sold. This suggests that the hopes of a compact car to come, perhaps a sedan rather than a sedan, will not materialize.
The name of the car “E41” will start production next year in Shanghai and will be at least 20% cheaper to produce Reuters. It could happen even earlier if Juniper disappoints, the sources were told 36 kr.
Tesla did not respond to a request byFortunefor comment.
Since many institutional investors grant a bonus on tangible sales of electric vehicles on Hazier’s dreams to build humanoid robots, a key growth hypothesis for many was tesla entering a new segment, such as the compact car, where it could extend its total addressable market.
These hopes have largely persisted because Tesla has been shy about its real product roadmap since last April. “The plans of new vehicles, including more affordable models, remain on the right track for the start of production in the first half of 2025” is the most explicit he made in his comments.
The chief executive Elon Musk kept these embers of hope by burning at the end of last year when he promised in October that Tesla EV sales would increase this year.
“With our vehicles at low prices, with the advent of autonomy, something like growth of 20 to 30% next year is my best assumption”, itsaid.
However, this was not repeated during the call for investors in the fourth quarter of January. Officially, Tesla aims to increase sales. Analysts now reduce their forecasts to reflect the undergoing boycotts and the lack of new convincing products.
History of growth in doubt
Packed for the first time as a cost of $ 25,000 in September 2020, the low -cost car has long been a greater strategic priority for many investors than Cybertruck, with annual sales estimated in millions.
No car manufacturer had ever reached such a feat. If Tesla has managed to transform an expensive medium -sized electric vehicle into the most popular car in the world, it was reliable to build a smaller and low -cost model that could rape the ceiling of 2 million units in a single year.
But the last supposed Spy photographs from what some believed to be a model 2 in early 2023, before a Reuters Report last April which revealed that the plans for a low-cost car built on the new generation platform that he would share with Cybercab had been rebuilt.
The stock landed on this news, but Musk was able to restore the faith that Tesla’s growth history was intact by saying that he had accelerated plans for a new more affordable model of six months in the first half of this year.
“ Having a regular 25K model is useless’
However, it has never become more precise. During the same October call when Musk predicted growth up to 30% in 2025, he then comment whose meaning may have been underestimated at the time.
“Having a regular model of 25K is useless, it would be silly, as if it would be completely in contradiction with what we believe”, hesaid.
At the time, which was interpreted as signifier Musk, would simply not launch a new product which was so cheap that it did not come from its complete automatic driving equipment, an inference computer known as AI4 (previously HW4).
Now it seems more and more clear that the expected explosive growth that Tesla will only come from a single model: cybercab. The Silver Link is Musk estimates that its sales could rise to 2 million per year, even 4 million.
But it is little consolation for investors due to a key concern: cybercab has no steering wheel or pedals. It requires a complete legal and regulatory framework to be sold and operated on public roads.
Tesla cannot convert cybercab either to a car for sale by adding human orders, because the car market with two -door seating a maximum of three people is tiny. The vehicle as designed and designed is Likley only financially viable as a vehicle for Robotaxis fleets.
This story was initially presented on Fortune.com
