Tesla boss Musk: "A $25,000 model would be pointless and silly."

What a pity, simply a pity: after Elon Musk is now getting involved politically and going completely off the rails, the same seems to apply more and more to Tesla. With the 25,000-dollar Model 2, he would have had an ace up his sleeve in 2024 and could have further increased production, but according to several consistent media reports, he has now completely scrapped his entry-level model. According to several consistent media reports, he declared:

"A regular 25,000-dollar model would be pointless and silly. It would be completely contrary to what we believe in."

Musk takes off

The only question is what Musk even believes in nowadays, if it's not affordable electromobility. What is clear: he has shifted his focus, among other things, to autonomous driving and his recently introduced robotaxis. He stated:

"I think we've made it very clear that the future is autonomous."

Consequently, Tesla would not "build a non-robotaxi model." The idea behind it: cars simply do nothing most of the time, from which he quite correctly concludes:

"But if they are autonomous, they could be used five times more, maybe ten times more."

Once again, the Tesla CEO contradicts himself, further undermining his credibility. As recently as January 2024, he stated that production of an "affordable model" would start in the second half of 2025 at the Gigafactory Austin, Texas. With the help of the entry-level model and a also once mentioned affordable SUV called the Model Q, Musk wanted to further boost his production numbers.

Completely deluded announcement: Musk wanted to build 20 million (!) cars annually by 2023

Here it is worth taking a look further back: in 2020, he announced with complete detachment that he would build 20 million vehicles annually by 2023! That would be twice as many as Toyota, the world's largest automobile manufacturer, currently sells. Or more than Toyota and VW combined!

There were various statements regarding production: sometimes it was supposed to be a completely new, cheaper platform from which the successors of Model 3 and Model Y could also be developed, and sometimes it was supposed to adopt elements of Model 3 and Model Y, with the aim of using the same production lines for all "affordable" models. Musk also wanted to fully exploit the once "expected maximum capacity of nearly three million vehicles and enable growth of more than 50 percent compared to production in 2023" before investing in completely new production lines. They discreetly updated Model S and X, and in 2023 Tesla then presented a similarly discreetly updated Model 3 and otherwise – nothing.

Forget the Baby-Tesla

But Musk continued to make bold announcements: He saw five million units prospectively for his new "Baby-Teslas," which were to be produced with completely new production methods (Gigacasting did indeed come – partially), a new 48-volt architecture, and the latest electric motors. He went into detail here: They were supposed to do without rare earths, require 25 percent less silicon carbide, and be half the size of current drives, which were also improved. Each motor was supposed to cost only around 1,000 US dollars to manufacture – a price that is nowadays not so far-fetched for a small, mass-produced electric motor.