Tesla announced it would launch more affordable models in the first half of the year, and many thought it talked about the elusive compact EV that has been long in the making. However, a new report from China indicates that one of the more affordable models planned to launch this year is a lower-priced Model Y, not a new car.
Tesla has been expected to launch a compact EV with a more affordable price to cater to customers in Europe and China. In 2023, this was supposed to use Tesla's Gen-3 architecture and a revolutionary new manufacturing process called "unboxed vehicle." A year later, Elon Musk changed his mind and scrapped the compact EV project to pursue robotaxis and autonomous driving instead.
However, Musk refused to admit that the compact EV project was shelved even as he announced the Robotaxi event, first for August 8 and then for October 10, 2024. Soon after the announcement, Tesla's Q1 2024 shareholder deck included information about "more affordable models, which will utilize aspects of the next-generation platform as well as aspects of the current platforms." That was enough to convince Tersla fans that Elon was right, the media was wrong, and Tesla would still produce the $25,000 compact EV.
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