Tesla’s upcoming $25,000 electric car and dedicated robotaxi vehicle will both look futuristic and be “Cybertruck-like,” according to new information from Elon Musk’s new authorized biography.
After the Cybertruck, which is launching any day, Tesla is expected to launch the most anticipated new electric vehicles.
A smaller and cheaper electric car commonly referred to as the “$25,000 Tesla model,” and a new “special robotaxi,” a vehicle designed from the ground up for autonomous driving without pedals or a steering wheel.
The former was first announced at Tesla’s Battery Day in 2020, when CEO Elon Musk said the new 4680 battery would allow the automaker to produce such a vehicle.
It has also been linked to a new electric hatchback that Tesla plans to produce at Gigafactory Shanghai in China and export worldwide.
Originally scheduled for 2023, it was postponed as Tesla focused on increasing production of the Model Y and developing autonomous driving.
As for the robotaxi, Tesla has talked about enabling all consumer vehicles built since 2016 to become robotaxis through a software update, but at Tesla’s Cyber Rodeo event in April 2022, Musk announced that Tesla would also have one “Robotaxi” will be built specifically for this purpose.
New information from Elon Musk’s biography
Walter Isaacson, a famous biographer, has been entrenched in Musk’s life for several years and is about to publish his authorized biography of the famous CEO.
As is often the case with such publications, he leaks some of the information that will be included in the book to the media in order to create buzz around the publication.
Now, via Axios, he has revealed some information about the development of the $25,000 Tesla car and dedicated robotaxi vehicle.
Here are some interesting and mostly new things from the details published by Isaacson:
- Internal discussions about Tesla’s own robotaxi began in November 2021
- Musk wanted the vehicle to have no steering wheel or pedal, but leading Tesla engineers and designers, including chief designer Franz von Holzhausen, long rejected the idea.
- In August 2022 (after announcing the product months earlier), Musk pushed through and decided on the concept of not having driver input available. He said, “Let me be clear. This vehicle must be designed as a clean robotaxi. That’s us.” I’ll take that risk. It’s my fault if it goes wrong. But we’re not going to design an amphibious frog that’s a mid-size car. We are all concerned with autonomy.”
- He told Isaacon, “This is the product that will make Tesla a ten trillion company.” People will be talking about this moment in a hundred years.”
- Despite announcing $25,000 a year earlier, things didn’t really get rolling until a meeting in September 2022, where Musk was presented with data showing that Tesla needed a much cheaper vehicle to meet its goal of annual delivery growth To achieve 50% and $20 million vehicles per year by 2023.
- They have pushed forward a new manufacturing plan that calls for both the $25,000 model and the Robotaxi to be produced on the same next-generation assembly line – likely what was unveiled at Tesla’s 2023 Investor Day.
- Musk was reportedly “not thrilled” with the $25,000 model until he was shown side-by-side concept vehicles of both the cheaper model and the robotaxi at a meeting in February 2023.
- The vehicles were described as having “a futuristic design like the Tesla Cybertruck.”
- Musk loved what he saw, saying, “When something like this comes around the corner, people are going to think they’re seeing something from the future.”
Electrek’s take
While it doesn’t contain any groundbreaking new information, it does provide a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Tesla’s development process compared to Musk’s public announcements.
I think it’s clearer than ever that we need to take everything with a pinch of salt.
In the case of both of these vehicle programs, it seems like they were announced long before Tesla actually developed them.
However, this is not uncommon in the automotive industry. It is well known that established car manufacturers often introduce concept cars that have little to do with their later production versions.
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