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Tesla is to start production of a new mass market electric vehicle code-named “Redwood” in mid-2025, according to people quoted by Reuters, with two of them describing the model as a compact crossover.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has long whetted fans and investors’ appetites for affordable electric vehicles and self-driving robotaxis that are expected to be made on next-generation, cheaper electric car platforms.
Those models, including an entry-level $25,000 car, would allow it to compete with cheaper petrol-powered cars and a growing number of inexpensive EVs, such as those made by China’s BYD.
BYD overtook Tesla as the world’s top EV maker in the final quarter of 2023.
Musk had first promised to build a $25,000 car in 2020, a plan he later shelved and then revived. Tesla’s cheapest offering, the Model 3 sedan, currently has a starting price of $38,990 in the US.
Tesla sent “requests for quotes,” or invitation for bids for the “Redwood” model, to suppliers last year, and forecast weekly production volume of 10,000 vehicles, the sources said, with production to begin in June 2025.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. Timing of next-generation compact vehicles was one of the most voted questions by investors to Tesla ahead of its quarterly results report on yesterday afternoon, where it is expected to forecast a 21 percent rise in 2024 deliveries, well below the long-term annual target of 50 percent that Musk set about three years ago. — Business Day.
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter