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The theme of a $ 25,000 Tesla has stay for geezerhood — in part , perhaps , because CEO Elon Musk state he was “ very convinced ” the company could do it at an outcome in 2020 .
But on Wednesday night , during Tesla’sthird - quarter pay call , Musk enjoin the idea of a $ 25,000 auto with a steering wheel and treadle is “ pointless , ” and “ silly . ” He said he only want to sell one car at that price : the “ Cybercab ” robotaxi he let out a prototype of two weeks ago .
It was the latest in a farsighted bloodline of public and private flip - flopping from Musk , a process that has so muddy the waters about Tesla ’s future product portfolio that some of his company ’s most fervid helper have confidently and wrongly proclaimed that the idea of a drivable $ 25,000 Tesla — with a steering roulette wheel and pedals — neverexisted .
But it did . Here ’s how we got here .
Battery Day
Musk surfaced the estimate of a $ 25,000 Tesla in 2020 at the troupe ’s so - called “ Battery Day”event . It was a vitrine of the newfangled in - mansion shelling mobile phone Tesla was working on , which were larger and more zip dense . Those advancements were theorize to assist drive down the cost of the most expensive piece of any EV , the battery pack . And they would enable Tesla to sell a car for $ 25,000 , Musk tell .
“ I think probably three eld from now we ’re confident we can make a very compelling $ 25,000 galvanising vehicle , that ’s also fully self-reliant , ” he said .
You could take that one of two ways . Either he imply the car would be a robotaxi like the Cybercab , with no steering wheel or foot lever . Or he was talking about a car with a wheel and pedals that , like he has promise about all other Teslas , would one solar day receive a software update that made it autonomous . For what it ’s deserving , Muskreportedlywas unsure about whether it would or would n’t be manually drivable in a September 2021 meeting .
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But it ’s not worth spending time arguing what incisively Musk mean . Because his own biographer found out .
Two cars
Musk announced in January 2022 that Tesla was “ not currently working on the $ 25,000 railway car , ” allege at the time that Tesla still design to do it , but that the company had too much on its plate . He also said that make Tesla ’s cars independent was more important than design a automobile for that cost point .
Musk ’s biographer , Walter Isaacson , discover out what happened next . In his biography , Isaacson describes that Musk and his top lieutenants spent months hashing out whether to pursue the robotaxi mind , or a more traditional car .
Isaacson describes Tesla ’s chief clothes designer Franz von Holzhausen examine to convince Musk in an August 2022 meeting that making a railcar with no steering bicycle or treadle was risky if the company could n’t get its Full Self - Driving software ready in time .
“ He suggested that they make a car that had a steering wheel and treadle that could be well remove , ” Isaacson write of von Holzhausen ’s sales pitch . Here ’s what followed :
“ No , ” Musk said . “ No . NO . ” There was a recollective pause . “ No mirror , no foot pedal , no steering wheel . This is me taking responsibility for this decision . ”The executives sitting around the table hesitated . “ Uh , we will come back to you on that , ” one said . Musk got into one of his very cold mood . “ get me be clear , ” he said slowly . “ This vehicle must be project as a sporty Robotaxi . We ’re pass away to take that risk . It ’s my error if it f — s up . But we are not going to plan some sort of amphibian toad that ’s a halfway gondola . We are all in on autonomy . ”
But von Holzhausen and Tesla technology VP Lars Moravy did not drop the idea of a manually drivable auto — if only because they saw it as a hedge to the risk that Tesla would either be wearisome to get the package the right way , or that it would pass into regulative red magnetic tape .
So they kept work on the more traditional design in secret .
In September 2022 , fit in to Isaacson , von Holzhausen and Moravy convinced Musk that the right approaching was to develop both vehicles . Musk was initially not thrilled , as Isaacson tell apart it . But by February 2023 , when von Holzhausen showed Musk modelling of “ the Robotaxi and the $ 25,000 railcar next to each other in the studio apartment , ” Musk “ have intercourse the design . ”
“ The new mass - market place vehicle , both with a steering wheel and as a Robotaxi , became recognise as ‘ the next genesis platform , ’ ” Isaacson wrote .
The report
The idea that Tesla was building two unlike vehicle on this next - generation platform give for about a twelvemonth , until Reuters published abombshell storyin April 2024 : Tesla had scrap plans to progress a manually operable $ 25,000 car in favor of just pursuing the robotaxi .
It appear Musk had flipped again . In response , heclaimed — without offering proof — that Reuters was “ lying . ” But a few weeks afterwards when Tesla released its quarterly outcome , the company tacitly acknowledge the report was right .
Tesla sustain in thatquarter ’s shareholder letterthat it was still quest after a robotaxi design . But it also say it was working on “ new vehicles , include more affordable models ” that would “ utilize aspects of the next coevals platform as well as panorama of our current platform , and will be able-bodied to be acquire on the same manufacture line as our current vehicle line - up . ” This is a very different plan from the $ 25,000 car that Musk approved in February 2023 , according to Isaacson .
To this day , the company has not excuse what these new fashion model will look like . Some have speculated that Tesla is grow even - more - pared - down versions of the Model 3 and Model Y. What seems clearfrom subsequent net releasesis that Tesla is fulfill those further cost reductions by using ideas from the next - generation platform — ideas that were meant for the $ 25,000 automobile that was go to be built on that platform — and build them on exist output phone line .
How low is Tesla try out to go with those price reductions ? The company has n’t said , and it no longer has a public relations section . The Model 3 currently embark on at around $ 42,000 . Musk now says a $ 25,000 railway car is “ silly ” and “ unpointed . ” peradventure at long last hand over a car at the long - assure $ 35,000 damage tag that the Model 3was hypothesize to sell atis a more serious idea .
Whatever the answer winds up being , just recall this the next time anyone questions it : Tesla really was at one breaker point working on a $ 25,000 car with a steering wheel and pedals .
