Elon Musk has revealed key details about the upcoming mass-market low-cost Tesla electric vehicle during the company’s Q4 earnings report. Codenamed “Redwood,” sources at Reuters say the vehicle is due to arrive in mid-2025 with production starting in June 2025 and that seems to be echoed by founder Elon Musk who says the unnamed vehicle is “very far along,” in its development with production on track to start in the second half of 2025.
“Current schedule says we will start production towards the end of 2025, but there’s a lot of new technology,” said Elon Musk. “We will be sleeping on the line.”
The news comes as competition from Chinese manufacturers, predominately BYD, increases significantly. Tesla is no longer the leading electric vehicle manufacturer globally as BYD delivered 526,409 vehicles compared to Tesla’s 484,507 cars in Q4, 2023. The updated Tesla Model 3 sedan is priced from $61,900 plus on-road costs in Australia while the competing BYD Seal is priced from $49,888 plus on-road costs. More interestingly, BYD sales were up 488.6% in Australia.
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During the call, Elon Musk also confirmed the vehicle will first be built at the brand’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas before Mexico and a location outside of North America. Musk previously signalled his interest in making a “significant investment” in India after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York in June, 2023.
Tesla will also debut manufacturing technology that is “far more advanced than any other automotive manufacturing system in the world, by a significant margin,” according to Musk. “Several years ago I said perhaps the most important competitive characteristic in the future of Tesla is manufacturing technology, and you will really see that come to bear with that next-gen vehicle.”
Tentatively pencilled as the Tesla Model 2, speculation says it’s going to be a smaller crossover like the Model Y rather than a sedan since the crossover shape has greater appeal across various markets. In recent years, Tesla tore down a Honda Civic to study how to make cheaper cars, according to sources at Reuters. The same sources suggest the next-generation Tesla architecture, internally called “NV9X,” will include two or more models.
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