“Model 2” Details Revealed
A wild amount of new details has just surfaced regarding Tesla’s newest vehicle platform - and it seems the $25,000 car is going to be way more important to the company's future than previously thought.
In a recent interview with news outlet Axiom, Walter Isaacson - author of an upcoming biography of Tesla CEO Elon Musk - discussed behind-the-scenes details about the several current projects at the company - the most interesting of which are the developments around Tesla’s upcoming new $25k vehicle that was teased at the Investors Day event back in March.
Back then, we were told that this new car would be making use of the new Tesla production philosophy - and testing out some new theories. It made sense then, that the presenters were confident that the new car would be built at the upcoming GigaMexico factory.
A whole new factory devoted at least in part to this experiment seemed like a solid idea. But that's reportedly not what's happening anymore.
According to Isaacson, the Tesla board has decided to move the development of the as-yet-unnamed vehicle to GigaTexas, for some very good reasons.
One of the most practical reasons is that Musk believes the Tesla Engineering team needs to be on hand in order to make this project as successful as it could be - and that whole team is based in GigaTexas right now.
The Cybertruck design project understandably required Tesla’s brightest minds to set up shop in the Austin factory - and that means uprooting all those people, with their tools and files would likely take too long for this new vehicle project to wait.
But the biggest is that this new car won't just be a new private consumer vehicle - it's also going to be the base design for a newly designed, Cybertruck-esque robotaxi.
That's right, Elon hasn't given up on his dream of supplying the market with fully automated taxis - and given the success of the Cybertruck’s marketing, it seems the company is more than happy to make the Robotaxi look like their new stainless steel pickup.
Now, it's also likely that even the consumer version of the new car will be making use of gigapresses to form large parts of its construction - aside from the engineering team, there’s not any other good reason to make another new vehicle at GigaTexas.
Sure they could just be eager to start the process now that Cybertruck is basically done - GigaTexas is also reportedly where Elon does most of his work after all - but the idea that this vehicle would be made to look like the uniquely designed pickup truck and not make use of all those expensive new gigapresses seems like an odd choice.
And speaking of odd choices, Isaacson details just how the Robotaxi project got tied to the $25k vehicle project. In a particularly tense board meeting during the summer of 2022, Elon put his foot down about a key feature of this new attempt at the Robotaxi - it won't be having mirrors, pedals, or even a steering wheel.
The conversation is detailed in the Axiom interview, where even Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen tried to walk Musk back a bit - but the CEO was Adamant that if they didn't go "all-in" for automation, it wouldn't work.
That's quite the gambit, but if Elon was apparently very adamant that this needed to be the route Tesla would take with their new vision of the robo-taxi - going so far as to take responsibility if the idea falls flat. I guess if Musk wants to butt heads with the US regulatory body, that's his prerogative as CEO.
But this is why having an experienced team helps - because Franz and some other board members knew what a headache it would be to get a vehicle without a steering wheel to be accepted by the authorities, and so at the end of the summer, they pitched the idea of using the new, affordable vehicle platform to get the ball rolling - introducing the automated Robotaxi version later. Elon agreed immediately.
Turning back to the car itself though, we're obviously making some educated guesses on the big reasons why this new production is being moved to Texas. But it just makes sense for them to make use of the gigapresses, and other Cybertruck innovations.
This early in the process, a lot of things can change pretty easily, so it's not too surprising that with Cybertruck’s pre production period coming to an end, Tesla would decide to bring their new $25k model into their most experienced design house.
We'll likely keep getting more information as time goes on - just like we did with the Cybertruck - but for now it's just interesting to think what else might be changing for this new car.