Tesla is developing a smaller, cheaper SUV, report says
Tesla is working on a new car, and it will be exactly what many are hoping for: a smaller, cheaper electric SUV.
This is revealed by Reuters, which spoke to four people familiar with the matter. According to the report, the new car will be an entirely new model, not a variant of the Model 3 or Model Y (Tesla recently discontinued its largest sedan and SUV, the Model S and Model X).
The new Tesla SUV would be around 14 feet long, making it considerably shorter than the Model Y, which is 15.7 feet long. It would also be “considerably” cheaper than the Model 3, which is currently the most affordable Tesla you can get, starting at $37,000 in the US.
End of an era: Tesla abandons Model S and Model X
The new SUV, which Tesla plans to manufacture in China, could also be offered with a smaller battery and just one motor instead of two (the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y may come with one or two motors). This would make the car lighter than other Tesla models, but the smaller battery could also mean it will have less range than existing models.
Crushable speed of light
There are no details on when Tesla plans to launch the new car, and the report states that the project is still in an “early development stage,” meaning it might not happen at all.
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The fact that Tesla is working on something is no secret; Just a few weeks ago, the company’s CEO Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla was working on something “much cooler than a minivan.”
Figuring out exactly what Tesla’s exact plans are is another matter. The company is working on an autonomous vehicle called Cybercab (or Robovan; the name doesn’t seem to be set in stone yet). And Tesla reportedly worked on a cheaper model for years before abandoning it, apparently to offer cheaper variants of existing models.
Notably, when Reuters reported that Tesla had given up on launching a cheaper model in 2024, Musk tweeted that the news agency was “lying.” The fact is that the company has never launched a cheaper model; we’ll see if things turn out differently this time.
