Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk has been teasing the world for years with his dream of an affordable electric car, and this week his fans expect him to explain what he has in mind for that purpose and what he could shell out to create it. .
Musk said last year that he had shelved plans for a $25,000 car, known as the Model 2, and had not mastered the new battery technology he said was crucial to cheap cars.
Expanding into the mass market is key to achieving Tesla’s goal of increasing vehicle deliveries 15 times — to 20 million — by 2030.
The automaker has cut prices in recent months to boost sales, which have been weighed down by a weak economy and growing competition.
Its shares are up about 60% year-to-date, but are still halfway through their November 2021 peak.
The low-priced car is expected to be the centerpiece of Musk’s “Part Three Master Plan”, which he will unveil at an “Investor Day” on Wednesday, alongside plans for factory expansion and capital spending.
Whatever Musk says about timelines, though, will make investors wary, as he missed his most important deadlines running the world’s most valuable auto company.
“The formula for decoding Musk is quite simple. Take whatever time frame he has and multiply it by two,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, which owns Tesla stock.
He expects the new car platform to launch at the earliest in 2025, which will still be years faster than the auto industry’s typical development of a new vehicle.
Tesla did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The clues offered by Musk about the Model 2 leave a lot to the imagination. Making an attractive $25,000 electric vehicle “has been our dream since the beginning of the company,” he said at a 2020 battery presentation.
A recent Tesla engineering video showed a small car with typical Tesla curves that company watchers assumed was a Model 2 sketch.
Guidehouse Insights analyst Sam Abuelsamid said Tesla may announce a cheaper car with a short range for the Chinese market, but an affordable, long-range car that can appeal to the North American market will likely take some time due to the slow increase of its own batteries.
Source: CNN Brasil
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