Did the design reveal Too Early?
It’s possible that Tesla just revealed the design of its upcoming $25,000 car by accident.
According to Electrek, a new corporate video released by the automaker featured concept sketches for a variety of electric vehicle designs that may or may not have been intended to foreshadow the look of the company’s forthcoming affordable hatchback.
CEO Elon Musk first announced the entry-level offering in 2020.
At the 2020 Battery Day event, he said that Tesla would make a “compelling, fully autonomous electric vehicle for $25,000.” Musk stated that mass production of the car would begin in 2023, the following year.
We need to take that claim, along with everything else related to Musk and his EV company, with a massive pinch of salt.
Tesla has always missed Musk’s ambitious deadlines, so it’s not surprising that customers will have to wait a few more years for a new design.
Tesla Hatchback
Electrek notes, however, that Tesla had begun soliciting ideas for a smaller car to be manufactured in China as early as 2015 when it published a sketch of a sleek, wedge-shaped hatchback.
To mark the opening of its new engineering headquarters in California, the company has just released a new corporate video. At 11 minutes and 38 seconds, there is a clear shot of a table with sketches spread out on it.
Electrek believes a white hatchback with a sloping, aerodynamic roofline and a much shorter wheelbase than Tesla’s other vehicles may be a glimpse of the future.
Have Faith in Your Dreams
Let’s be clear, though; that’s just a theory. The presence of rough sketches in a corporate video is no indication of whether or not Tesla is in fact developing a cheaper hatchback, let alone what it will look like. There’s also the possibility that Tesla’s inclusion of the sketch in the video was a very subtle way of introducing the concept to the galaxy-brain community at large.
Also, the company has a hard time maintaining low prices. Given that the Model 3 currently starts at well over $40,000, Tesla’s goal of bringing the price down to $25,000 in 2023 is an extremely ambitious one.
However, if Tesla is successful in developing a compact hatchback in the future, it could be a huge success, especially in China.
