The decision represents an abandonment of a longstanding goal that Tesla chief Elon Musk has often characterized as its primary mission: affordable electric cars for the masses. His first “master plan”, opens new tab for the company in 2006 called for manufacturing luxury models first, then using the profits to finance a “low cost family car.”
Tesla shares were down about 3% in early afternoon trading after the Reuters report.
Musk has since repeatedly promised such a vehicle to investors and consumers. As recently as January, Musk told investors that Tesla planned to start production of the affordable model at its Texas factory in the second half of 2025, following an exclusive Reuters report detailing those plans.
But Tesla doesn’t make their own battery cells. They put cells (made by suppliers) together as a pack, but that is something that their competitors can easily do themselves (and they do already). Their solar business doesn’t seem to be significant at this point, and I can’t imagine it would be considering the steep cost required to get an installation done.
I think you’re incorrect. They, in partnership with Panasonic, make a ton of cells at their Nevada gigafactory. They have five more gigafactories where they make other components like motors, batteries, photovoltaic cells, etc…
I also think “easily” is pulling a lot of weight in your sentence there. Scaling up battery pack production to hit manufacturing goals in the next 10 or so years is going to be difficult for anyone attempting it.
All that said, fuck Musk I wish he’d take a ride to Mars already.
Tesla has had a head start, but BYD is hot on their heels and is looking to surpass them soon: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-global-electric-vehicle-sales-in-2023-by-market-share/
I think one problem for other companies is that they already have ICE vehicles that they’re content with making up the vast majority of their sales. Those other companies are still only pricing EVs for the higher-end market, which don’t necessitate higher unit production to make significant profits. Tesla only makes EVs and thus dedicate 100% of their manufacturing capacity to EVs. BYD is also a pure EV manufacturer and seems more capable of expanding than even Tesla. Tesla doesn’t have the moat that its stock price pretends it does.