- Tesla says it will add some new, more affordable models to its range before the year’s end
- The automaker is apparently also rolling out a fleet of robotaxis in Texas in June
- Timelines promised by Tesla in the past have tended to be, erm, aggressive
Anyone familiar with the parable about the Boy Who Cried Wolf knows the moral of that story is if one tells enough fibs, eventually no one will believe them even when they’re telling the truth. Some like to think the alternate moral of that same story is simply never to tell the same lie twice.
Regardless of schoolyard lessons, and to whichever boy-wolf moral you subscribe, Tesla has developed a reputation for wildly over-promising and sorely under-delivering – whether it’s on model introduction timelines, predicted pricing pre-launch, or the amount of range one can eke from its cars. This time around, the company is continuing to bang on about the imminent introduction of new ‘affordable’ models, ones likely to undercut the Model 3 and Model Y in terms of price. Could it actually be telling the truth this time?
According to statements made during a recent earnings call, these vehicles will utilize aspects of a next-gen platform, plus aspects of current platforms. The machines are apparently going to be produced on existing manufacturing lines.
“Plans for these vehicles remain on track for start of production in the first half of 2025,” the company said. That’s a mighty short leash, especially when one considers the occasional pronouncements from Elon Musk that Tesla should focus its forward-looking efforts on robotaxis instead of affordable vehicles.
And, before anyone bleats that Musk is given too much credit for his involvement in the company’s direction, the official Tesla website literally says “Elon leads all product design, engineering and global manufacturing of the company’s electric vehicles, battery products and solar energy products.”
That’s a helluva portfolio for a guy who runs numerous other businesses, a social media company, and plays co-President of the United States whilst pretending to be an ace gamer.
While none of this sounds like the company’s prepping stripper versions of the previous-gen Model 3 and Model Y, it’s not something we can rule out. If that ends up being the case, Tesla stans should eat some serious crow after years of dunking on legacy automakers, since that was exactly the playbook employed by GM for rehashed leftovers like the Malibu Classic.
Meanwhile, the company says it plans to launch a fleet of autonomous robotaxis – a promise Musk has been making since the pre-Covid era – this June in Texas, using Tesla’s own vehicles and an unsupervised version of its so-called Full Self-Driving (FSD) hardware. Like everything else, details of this are predictably vague. Hey, is that a wolf?
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