Tesla has reportedly told its suppliers about the production of new ‘mass market’ electric cars codenamed “Redwood” in mid-2025. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has long whetted consumers’ and investors’ appetites for affordable electric vehicles and self-driving robotaxis that are expected to be cheaper electric car platforms.
According to the Reuters news agency, the upcoming models, including an entry-level $25,000 car, would allow it to compete with cheaper gasoline-powered cars and a growing number of inexpensive EVs such as China’s BYD electric cars.
BYD overtook Tesla as the world’s top EV maker in the final quarter of 2023.
“In 2024, our vehicle volume growth rate may be notably lower than the growth rate achieved in 2023, as our teams work on the launch of the next-generation vehicle at Gigafactory Texas,” Tesla said in a quarterly results report.
Musk had first promised to build a $25,000 car in 2020, a plan he later shelved and then revived. Tesla’s cheapest offering, the Model 3 sedan, currently has a starting price of $38,990 in the United States.
Musk said last year he was concerned about the impact of high-interest rates on consumer demand for big-ticket items like cars.
Tesla sent “requests for quotes,” or invitations for bids for the “Redwood” model, to suppliers last year. The automaker envisaged a weekly production volume of 10,000 vehicles, Reuters added.
Production of Tesla’s affordable cars will begin in June 2025.
Tesla plans to make an inexpensive robotaxi and an entry-level, $25,000 electric car based on the same vehicle architecture, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk released in September.
Musk said in 2022 that Tesla would make a dedicated self-driving taxi with a futuristic look in 2024, after several misses at its goal of achieving full self-driving capability.
Tesla Vs BYD: Tesla loses EV crown to Chinese automaker
He and other Tesla executives laid out plans last March to halve the cost of its next-generation vehicles but did not provide a timeframe for the launches.
Tesla also plans to build cheaper cars at its factory near Berlin, and is interested in building a factory in India to produce less expensive electric cars, sources said previously.
The EV maker also has factories in Shanghai and in Fremont, California.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Universal Times Magazine staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
