Nov 5 (Reuters) - When Reuters reported in April that Tesla had scrapped plans for a long-promised, next-generation $25,000 electric vehicle, the automaker’s stock plunged. Chief Executive Elon Musk rushed to respond on X, his social-media network.
“Reuters is lying,” he posted without elaborating. Tesla’s stock recovered some of its losses.
Six months later, Musk appears to have backed into an admission that Tesla dropped its plans for a human-driven $25,000 car. He said in an Oct. 23 earnings call that building the affordable EV would be "pointless” unless the car was fully autonomous.
His latest remarks came in response to an investor asking: “When can we expect Tesla to give us the $25,000 non-robotaxi regular car model?”
Musk responded: “We’re not making a non-robo…,” before he was interrupted by another Tesla executive. Musk later added: “Basically, I think having a regular $25K model is pointless. It would be silly.”
Translated: the Chinese won that battle, and TSLA doesn't have enough R&D to chase self-driving and cheap, esp. given how unimpressive their self driving is compared to competitors
You missed the "and" in the comment you were replying to. They can do fsd or they could do cheap. Not both. Though, to be honest I doubt they can do either.
He rolls out the same BS every time the stock needs to be pumped up. The good thing is, it didn't work this time. This unveil actually made the stock drop because they're so far behind.
It's a weird design for a robotaxi specific car. I guess it can be cheap as a 2 seater. But other manufacturers are investing in the robotics needed for low cost cars. The aero dynamics aren't typically helpful for taxis. I understand he will try to milk existing models until FSD instead of innovating on them.