Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has confirmed at the company’s long-awaited Battery Day that it aims to produce a $25,000 electric car.
According to Musk, the affordable model will use the automaker’s new ‘tabless’ battery cells. By using these cells, as well as changing the materials inside the cell, Tesla wants to roughly halve the price per kilowatt-hour of EV batteries. From 2010 to 2019, the price per kilowatt-hour fell from $1,100 to $156 but Musk wants to reduce this even further.
Tesla hasn’t revealed all that many details about the new entry-level model, although Musk did claim during his presentation that it will be “fully autonomous.” Of course, Musk has made many wild Level 5 autonomy claims in recent years, none of which have come to fruition so we aren’t holding our breath on that claim. He added the car will come to the market in roughly three years.
This isn’t the first time Musk has spoken about a possible $25,000 electric vehicle. During an interview back in 2018, the outspoken chief executive said that a $25,000 EV would be something Tesla could do, suggesting it could be launched within three years. There are no details regarding the vehicle’s range.
Musk made another bold proclamation at the event. According to him, Tesla is aiming to produce 20 million vehicles per year in the “long-term”. Such a figure is well beyond what any analysts would even deem remotely possible. After all, there were 92 million vehicles produced worldwide in 2019 and a lot would have to change in the industry for Tesla to be building over 20 per cent of the cars produced worldwide.
Note: Tesla’s ‘China-Style’ EV sketch pictured above