Joe Skipper/Reuters
- Elon Musk appeared to confirm on Monday that the US-based electric-vehicle company is planning to eventually design and manufacture new and differing car models at Gigafactory Shanghai and Berlin.
- This comes as Musk recently presented at Tesla’s “Battery Day” on September 22 that he expects a $25,000 “fully autonomous electric vehicle” to hit the automobile market in roughly three years.
- The comment gives us a glimpse at how Musk envisions the two factories functioning and fitting into Tesla’s roadmap of the design and manufacturing of future products.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed on Monday that the US-based electric vehicle company is eventually planning to manufacture two new and differing car models at its Gigafactories abroad.
“Both will do original cars,” Musk said in response to a tweet about the Gigafactories in Shanghai and Berlin and their respective design factories.
Musk’s remark expands the understanding of what Tesla’s eventual roadmap is for its expanded supply chain, and hints that Tesla is planning to both design and manufacture news models in those two locations.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 28, 2020
Musk also confirmed that the $25,000, “fully autonomous” vehicle he teased during last week’s Battery Day event won’t be a low-cost version of a current vehicle. “We aren’t cutting the price of Model 3 to $25k,” Musk tweeted. The cheapest version of the Model 3 now starts at $35,000.
“We’re confident that long term, we can design and manufacture a compelling $25,000 electric vehicle,” Musk said at Battery Day. “This has always been our dream, from the beginning of the company.” He estimated that the goal is for the cheaper car, which would be Tesla’s least expensive yet, to be ready in around three years.
Musk made the announcement in November that he planned to build a Gigafactory in Berlin, stating that the first European location would be home to both an engineering and design center, according to CNBC.
In January, Car and Driver reported that Musk said that Tesla planned to build a new design studio in China where it would produce the Model 3.
Business Insider reported in August that Musk said that it’s “highly likely” Tesla will eventually create a smaller version of the Cybertruck, which is about the size of the bigger versions of the Ford F-150. It could be marketed overseas where vehicle and road policies have led to a relatively weaker demand for large-sized trucks.
Tesla plans to construct the originally announced Cybertruck by the end of 2021 at Gigafactory Austin.
“We’re really, fundamentally making this truck as a North American ass-kicker, basically,” Musk said in an interview with Automotive News. “The goal is to kick the most amount of ass possible with this truck.”
Aside from the Cybertruck and yet-to-be-named $25,000 vehicle, Tesla is also working to launch the Tesla Semi and an all-new Roadster.
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