Tesla is on the cusp of launching a range of “more affordable models” in a bid to broaden its appeal after it logged its first annual decline in sales since becoming a mainstream brand.
It sold 1.79 million cars last year, down from 1.81m in 2023.
The new cars are intended to ultimately boost Tesla‘s annual output by more than 60% compared with these figures, to around 3.0m cars.
The company said the new cars will enter production in the first half of 2025.
They will use “aspects” of both the existing Model 3 and Model Y platforms as well as the new architecture that the firm detailed last summer. They will also be built on the same factory lines as Tesla’s existing cars, which implies that they are an evolution of those vehicles, rather than all-new.
The fact that Tesla has yet to reveal the new cars also suggests they are variants of the Model 3 and Model Y, given that the company has historically shown all-new vehicles years before they enter production. The Cybertruck, for example, was unveiled in 2019 but deliveries only began in November 2023.
The announcement brings clarity after months of back-and-forth denials and confirmations by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
In April last year, Reuters reported that the long-mooted ‘Model 2’ had been cancelled, to which Musk replied on social media that “Reuters is lying again”.
But in October, speaking at the reveal of the Cybercab – a fully-autonomous two-seater – Musk said: “When we talk about a $25,000 [£20,000] electric car, it wouldn’t make much sense to think about a model other than the Cybercab.”
This implies that the new cars will not be pitched against the new breed of European superminis, such as the Renault 5 (priced from £22,995) and Citroën ë-C3 (from £21,990).
It’s possible that they will instead be priced at around £30,000 – substantially cheaper than the £39,990 Model 3 – to fend off competition from Chinese firms such as Nio’s new Onvo and Firefly spin-offs, as well as BYD and Xpeng.