Don't Listen To Elon Musk, The $25,000 Tesla Still Isn't Coming
Photo: Tesla, Image: Amber DaSilva / Jalopnik
For years now, Tesla has been promising a $25,000 car to serve as the entry point for the brand. This is unlikely to ever happen, but Elon Musk continues to claim it’s totally real and absolutely coming any day now — even when Reuters says it’s dead.
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Musk claimed on Twitter that the Reuters report was “lying (again),” with no further evidence to back up this claim. He went on to call the outlet “dying” and “the lair [sic] champion among legacy press orgs,” only adding detail by adding an “eyes” emoji to a post speculating that the $25,000 car might be the robotaxi. Electrek, meanwhile, cites inside sources who claim that the small car has been back-burnered — no matter what Musk says.
Electrek can confirm that the program, which was internally called ‘NV9’, was postponed, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Musk might take issues with claiming that it is “canceled”, but the project is effectively scratched right now as Tesla is putting all resources into its self-driving effort.
According to sources familiar with the matter, Musk told Tesla’s team in Austin in December 2023 that NV9, an expansion of Gigafactory Texas for the new cheaper next-gen model, was a priority for 2024.
However, the project was recently completely defunded, and many people involved in it were laid off as part of the round of layoffs announced today.
Instead, Musk said that he wanted Tesla to focus on the south expansion of Gigafactory Texas, which is going to house a giant data center for the Robotaxi project.
This refocus on the Gigafactory expansion aligns with Musk’s other tweets from the time, citing the difficulty of construction in a world with laws and building codes. As always, it’s best to look at what Tesla’s actually doing — not what its CEO is spouting off on Twitter.
