Elon Musk Confirms ‘More Affordable’ Tesla Will Cost More Than $30,000, Roadster Not Finalized Yet
Tesla is planning to launch new “more affordable” models early next year, but it will be far from the long-awaited $25,000 car.
Tesla confirmed the timing during its Q3 earnings report and CEO Elon Musk reiterated the point during the investor call.
Musk said the cars would go into production in the first half of 2025 and that it will cost “with incentives sub-$30,000,” a figure he called a “key threshold.”
The maximum federal tax credit for electric vehicles is $7,500, which means the model could cost as much as $37,499.
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Tesla’s lowest-priced car today is the Model 3 Long Range Rear-Wheel Drive, which starts at $42,420. Tesla had been selling a Model 3 Standard Range Rear-Wheel Drive this year for $38,990, but its battery pack used components from China that disqualified the vehicle for the tax credit. That made it more expensive to buy for many customers than the Long Range version, so it was discontinued.
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The new affordable model will be based on the platform used by the Model 3 and Model Y, but Tesla hasn’t said much more about it than that. This year it launched a low priced version of the Model 3 in Mexico with cloth seats and other basic trim.
Musk did say that the Robotaxi revealed earlier this month will cost $25,000 when sales begin in 2026 and he predicted that Tesla will be able to produce two million a year at that time. He did not clarify if that price is before or after the tax credit. The Robotaxi is being designed on a next-generation platform that is being engineered as the most efficient electric vehicle.
Tesla also reported that it has now built the seven-millionth car since it was founded, with the one-millionth having just come in 2020.
Musk also had a message for the “long-suffering reservation holders” who had put down money for the new Roadster sports car that was first revealed in 2017 as a concept. Earlier this year, he claimed that it would be revealed this year and go on sale in 2025, but said on the call that they are “finally making progress” and “close to finalizing the design.” He didn’t updated the timing for its launch and said that it is less important to the company’s mission to transition the world to sustainable transportation than its high volume products.
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