Tesla is targeting 2025 to launch a mass-market compact crossover, with speculation growing that it could be the automaker’s best-priced vehicle yet.
Following Wednesday’s publication of a Reuters report claiming that Tesla has been informing suppliers of its plan to launch its first new vehicle since the Cybertruck last year, Tesla chief Elon Musk confirmed during a post-earnings call that the company expects to begin production of an all-new electric vehicle at its Texas facility in the second half of 2025.
The upcoming automobile is reportedly codenamed “Redwood,” and sources told Reuters Tesla would seek to make 10,000 of them per week. But the news outlet also pointed out that Tesla has been known to miss deadlines, most famously with its Cybertruck pickup, unveiled in 2019, but missed several launch targets before the first ones rolled off the production line late last year. Mass production of the Cybertruck isn’t expected to begin until 2025.
There’s a chance that the upcoming vehicle will be competitively priced to help Tesla take on its fast-growing Chinese competitor BYD, which surpassed it as the world’s top electric vehicle maker in the last quarter of 2023. A price tag of $25,000 has been mooted by Musk in the past, but considering its current cheapest vehicle — the Model 3 — retails for $38,990, it could be a challenge to achieve such an attractive price tag. Also, the Cybertruck ended up with a starting price of $60,990, around $20,000 more than originally expected.
Musk has said previously that Tesla is also planning to make a futuristic-looking self-driving taxi, though it’s unclear when it might see the light of day.
Tesla’s fourth-quarter earnings, reported on Wednesday, came in at $25.2 billion, up about 3% on the same period a year earlier.
