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Tesla’s recently announced $25,000 electric car could be coming sooner than we thought, according to newly unveiled documents about Gigafactory Shanghai.
Tesla’s $25,000 electric car
When talking about what Tesla’s new battery cell and “structural battery pack” architecture could enable at Battery Day last year, CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla will be making a $25,000 electric car.
The CEO commented in the announcement:
Tesla will make a compelling $25,000 electric vehicle that is also fully autonomous.
He made it clear that this new price point is achieved through Tesla’s new battery cell and battery manufacturing effort.
Musk also added that the new $25,000 electric car is going to come to market in about three years, when Tesla has ramped up production of its new battery cell.
Tesla didn’t reveal any other spec on the car, but Musk has previously hinted that it would have more than 200 miles of range.
Cheaper Tesla electric car could be coming sooner
The new $25,000 Tesla has been linked to the previously announced plan to launch a new electric car designed and built in China.
According to new Gigafactory Shanghai documents submitted to the government, Tesla is planning to add a cheaper third model to be produced at Gigafactory Shanghai as soon as 2022 (via Weibo and translated from Chinese):
According to the Tesla Gigafactory construction project document exposed on the Internet, Tesla’s new domestic models will be directly produced in the Shanghai Gigafactory. The positioning and selling price will be lower than its Model 3, and the price of the new car is expected to remain unchanged. Between RMB 160,000 and RMB 200,000, mass production and delivery may be as early as 2022.
Note that 160,000 Chinese yuan is exactly $24,755 USD, and 2022 is a little earlier than what was previously announced.
However, we know that work has started on the new electric vehicle.
Electrek‘s take: a game changer, but let’s temper expectations
I would take this report with a grain of salt for now.
If true, it’s a game changer. Tesla being able to produce a $25,000 electric car in volume in 2022 would be extremely disruptive in the auto industry.
On the other hand, they need to significantly ramp up 4680 battery cell production to build the vehicle, and the new structural battery pack design could be hard to bring to production considering it’s a brand-new way to build cars.
Personally, I think late-2023 or 2024 is more likely, but I could be pleasantly surprised, especially considering how quick Tesla’s Chinese team has been in the past.
I picture shown at Battery Day said that this $25k vehicle would use an Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery, which is what they use in Tesla China's SR+ Model 3. It has lower energy density but is cheaper to build. Supposedly it may be able to charge 100% but also may have cold weather issues compared to their normal batteries. That's just what I've heard IDK if it's true or not. Also Apple's car was rumored to use LFP batteries.
Also Tesla Berlin is supposed to be designing a small car for Europe, it seems to me that China and Berlin are designing a very similar/the same car. But it seems the China team is already working on it and the Berlin team probably hasn't started or even been hired yet.
I saw suggest calling it the Tesla Q in reference to the #TSLAQ short sellers who tried to destroy the company but ended up losing billions of dollars in the process
Tesla short sellers often have fossil fuel backgrounds, or other industries that are threatened by Tesla.
And watch this video breakdown of an Jim Cramer video where he admits to spreading FUD in the media to short a stock and get away with it. Basically every TSLAQ story was BS but the media gobbled it up in 2019
Tesla China Already Built First $25K Compact EV Prototype
Well-known auto industry leaker from China also claims that trial production is planned for the end of this year.
Tesla’s $25,000 compact car project is a fascinating topic for many obvious reasons, so a rumor that the first prototype has already been built in China is bound to get a lot of attention.
The highly-anticipated $25K compact electric car developed by Tesla China apparently has reached the prototype stage, at least according to a well-known local auto industry leaker going by the name of 不是郑小康. He posted on Chinese microblogging website Sina Weibo that the first prototype has been completed and most component suppliers have been lined up, adding that trial production has been planned for the end of this year.
While you should obviously take this for what it is (an unconfirmed rumor), Tesla owner and influencer Ray4Tesla has posted the Chinese leaker’s message on Twitter, adding that it comes from a “pretty reliable source” who previously brought several leaks to surface that proved to be true.
Granted, the possibility of Tesla China having already built the first $25K compact EVprototype is very exciting and should not be ruled out. Development of the elusive model, rumored to be called Model 2 or Model Q, has pretty much been kept secret so far.
However, there have been clear hints that Tesla China is developing a smaller EV than the Model 3. Those included a January report from Sina Motors about Tesla already starting the environmental impact assessment for the $25,000 vehicle. The Chinese publication also mentioned then that the first units would likely begin testing in the second half of 2021. That certainly ties in with this recent rumor that trial production will begin at the end of this year.
Back in February, Tesla China President Tom Zhu also dropped a big clue by confirming that a new model would be designed, developed and built in China at Giga Shanghai and sold to the whole world.
01-08-2021, 10:38 PM
