The decision represents an abandonment of a longstanding goal that Tesla chief Elon Musk has often characterized as its primary mission: affordable electric cars for the masses. His first “master plan”, opens new tab for the company in 2006 called for manufacturing luxury models first, then using the profits to finance a “low cost family car.”
Tesla shares were down about 3% in early afternoon trading after the Reuters report.
Musk has since repeatedly promised such a vehicle to investors and consumers. As recently as January, Musk told investors that Tesla planned to start production of the affordable model at its Texas factory in the second half of 2025, following an exclusive Reuters report detailing those plans.
I don’t understand the article title. With the looming threat of super cheap Chinese EVs, Tesla decides to cancel their low-cost car. How does that help Tesla compete? Doesn’t seem like he has a plan to counter competition. Maybe he’s relying on the steep 25% tariffs that the US places on Chinese EVs (that they’re also thinking of increasing even higher). Add this to the massive pile of broken Musk promises. The article goes on to mention “self-driving robotaxis” which I assume will be yet another broken Musk promise.
I had the exact same question after reading the article.
Chinese evs are cheap and their build quality is rapidly improving.
Tesla roofs and doors fall off so he’s going to keep prices the same?
Without a cheap Tesla equivalent, I don’t see how Tesla maintains its market share unless the Chinese manufacturers make a suicidal move and start pricing their cars higher than Tesla.
Maybe he’s going all in on self-driving but that really doesn’t seem anywhere close
What blows my mind is that he’s sabotaging his own engineers by forcing them to only rely on cameras for self-driving. Let’s excuse the consumer vehicle market for a moment since maybe the added cost of LIDAR and RADAR is too much. That doesn’t explain why he also wants the robotaxis to only rely on cameras. Robotaxis would provide service to far more people per vehicle, so the per-vehicle cost shouldn’t matter as much. Replacing a human driver alone recoups the cost of LIDAR and RADAR in a short amount of time.