Tesla to Delay Production of Cheaper EVs, Reuters Reports

Paywall Bypass: https://archive.today/xxlqA

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Sweet. Get ready for another 25% drop in share price.

This may or may not be true - Reuters have proven repeatedly that when it comes to Tesla they'll switch gears to pure biased tabloid-style journalism in an instant. I honestly can't trust them on this specific subject at all.

Well, the last big story Reuters broke about Tesla was that they were going to scrap the Model 2 in favor of Robotaxi. Elon called it fake news. And it ended up being exactly accurate.

Does this mean Model Y Juniper Long Range RWD will also follow suit? :/

It's been a month, time for Reuters to run this article again.

I'm guessing we'll get some info on the earnings call next week and we'll possibly know for sure.

How can they make cheaper cars when costs in the U.S. are higher naturally and China tariffs are prohibitively. Elon backed the wrong horse and it’s really screwing Tesla…but I don’t think he cares at all

Yep! I don’t think there is a cheaper model after all. It’s never been brought up. By now something would’ve leaked.

Yeah, there has been a couple of times, that Reuters reported incorrect information about Tesla

They have been saying they will start deliveries of this cheaper vehicle in first half of 2025. There's no way unless they're going to try and pull the same thing they did with the $35k model 3 with an off menu stripped down version.

Do you have an example of the tabloid journalism from Reuters?

Ah the least reputable publication lol

I don't think any news agency can ever be 100% accurate. The way in which stories are reported, including appropriate language and proper validation of sources sets credible organizations like Reuters apart from rumour-mill blogs we see posted here a lot. Go read the article itself: >SAN FRANCISCO/NEW DELHI/SEOUL April 18 (Reuters) - Tesla's long-awaited plans for an affordable car include a U.S-made, stripped-down version of its best-selling electric SUV, the Model Y, but the production launch has been delayed, three sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-delay-us-launch-affordable-ev-lower-cost-model-y-sources-say-2025-04-18/

“Now production will be pushed back by at least three months” - as much as I will criticise the company for delays and promises not kept this wasn’t even worth writing the article and makes it seem deceptive.

Cheaper is a relative term If they can shave $10k off verses the 3, it’s still 10k cheaper even if that price goes up because the 3 will go up as well

Better than “Elon says…”, IMO.

I wish.. we all know it’ll go up

That’s good for people who don’t have any shares or if someone wants to buy more 🤷‍♂️

Ok, so somebody catch me up on this. Did Tesla ever actually announce a model 2 coming up ? They announced cybercab, but never anything cheaper.

And it’s been refuted again lmao Freuters

Don’t temp me with a good sale

They didn’t scrap it, because they said they’re still on track to make the affordable models. They never said it was a Model 2, that was pure speculation.

Since this is reddit I can safely assume any sentiment on here is the opposite of what will happen.

No. Alluded to one but nothing definite. No name on it. Everyone just assuming the one under the cover was a cheaper model

They couldn't make a big splashy announcement because of a potential ozborne effect

This is probably Model Y RWD version. Nothing special here.

So why does it seem that everyone is convinced that they are all of a sudden going to out into production a model they never announced ? I remember the whole thing when rumors came that Elon cancelled model 2 in favor of cyber cab, and he denied. But then they never really said anything about model 2 again

A whole lot of speculators mainly from Wall Street people who depend on news movement to move the stock price one way or the other

Tesla has very little in each car that comes from China. Literally the most American car brand available in terms of both percentage of parts made and assembled in the US and more importantly for tariffs, the lowest cost of foreign parts in each car. Also, quite simply, Tesla is the most innovative company in the world and is the best manufacturing company in the world. It's the same reason that they remain the only EV company that can make their cars profitably.

Let’s see what the official earnings and outlook statement from Tesla is when it comes out… 🙂

Chinese automakers are innovating faster than Tesla. Tesla has things going for it but the pace of EV innovation is much faster in China.

They publish this article as a short attack because the company cannot say anything before the company update on Tuesday. They’re hoping that this article drives the stock much lower on Monday and the people behind this article profit a lot. If the company update was on Monday this would not have been published. this is stock manipulation by short sellers

They don’t announce this on a Friday news dump because it’s good news.

Of course

Yeah the ecosystem for the price is the problem

Elon screeched that Reuters was fake news when it reported that he cancelled the mature low cost project in early 2024 even when parts were starting to be designed and ordered with suppliers. Then he said that they were pursuing a strategy of something cheaper on the same lines. Reuters never retracted. What I think: Musk simply had a shitfit and canceled the project and there was no alternative in planning at all. He just made it up because Reuters made him look bad. No notion that it was remotely feasible, no engineering no nothing.

Everything Tesla does is delayed.

Nah Tesla themselves said they were working on cheaper models in their last few earnings reports. Not speculation.

Elon announced “new low cost models in 2024” in Q2 2023 earnings call for a sweet stock pump

I think Tesla themselves said they’d go to production in the first part of 2025 in their investor reports.

Did they not say during multiple earnings calls that they were on track to produce a cheaper model on the same production lines as the 3/Y in the second half of ‘25?

They, luckily, have an entire government backing them.

Stock took quite a hit when Tesla announced the $25k Model 2 was cancelled. Eventually, on a quarterly call, Tesla just said ok we will make a $25k vehicle using existing parts. For context BYD was shipping a new vehicle every 3 months including low cost models, making Tesla look bad. Tesla boring company also promised a multi-person van for the Los Vegas Loop so Tesla keeps pretending, but no Van has ever been seen in public.

Have you ever taken apart a Tesla and looked at all the standings on parts? LOTS of parts on a Tesla are actually made in China or Mexico. Sure, 80-90% of the *parts value* of the car is “Domestic content” (which actually includes Canada and Mexico). But there’s lots of parts like trim pieces and even wheels that are made in China.

They never named it or said it was a completely different model though. Could just be a stripped down 3 or Y. The model 2 or model Q name never came directly from Tesla

>Tesla boring company also promised a multi-person van for the Los Vegas Loop so Tesla keeps pretending, but no Van has ever been seen in public. That's the robovan.

You mean the Robovan that was unveiled last October?

>They announced cybercab, but never anything cheaper. Refer to page 12 of Tesla's Q4 2024 shareholder slide deck, specifically the section "Product". It states: *"****Plans for new vehicles, including more affordable models, remain on track for start of production in the first half of 2025.*** *These vehicles will utilize aspects of the next generation platform as well as aspects of our current platforms and will be produced on the same manufacturing lines as our current vehicle line-up."*

They even haven’t released the Rwd model Y which is maybe another 5000 off. After tax credit would be near $36000。 Lars said they would make one cheaper by 20% if I recall, like the one they did in Mexico. Cloth seats, reduced speakers, more plastic.

Donald Trump literally just hosted a Tesla car show in front of the White House. Tesla has had the support of the government years. Elon Musk just sucks. He's running the company into the ground.

Small Model 2??? Or a Used Model 3 that could be cheaper? 🤔

which was never cheaper version of Model Y, now people are conflating the two lol

cheaper variant can be the equivalent of Cybertruck RWD. has it been delayed? maybe. Is that THE new car? i dont think so but we dont know.

According to their last several earnings reports, “model 2”was cancelled so company could focus on robotaxi… then they announced they’re working on a lower cost model roughly coming out in 2025.. Since they’ve never actually released definitive details about their model 2, I’m not surprised they’re delaying the launch. Supposedly, they are going to launch a stripped down model 3/Y (rumors) Ehh who knows

I’ve yet to see anything of their “next gen” platform. Kia and Hyundai have 800V tech now. Not to mention V2L. Tesla just barely announced V2L for the model Y. But we’ll see how long that’ll be. I’m guessing Q1 2027.

Cybertruck Long Range RWD is one, we'll see what the other(s) will be.

How do you define affordable?

If you think it’s the same thing as what the Chinese government is, smartly in my opinion, doing, then you are not paying attention.

I thought they stopped development. That would explain a production delay

That may be true but doesn't take away from the fact that they are out innovating Tesla. I'd also argue the core reason of their ability to out innovate the west is their dominance in electronics manufacturing skills. Certainly the US government has protected domestic companies but that can only reduce the pressure to compete.

Elon has bet the company on robotics and AI while the EV tech grows stale and is already behind the Chinese and will be behind the next generation of vehicles from Western manufacturers

Glad I sold my stock. Company is going down the tubes.

Yeah, that's as real as the Roadster

How much more can they strip it down?

It is easier to build cheaper cars when you can pay your workers 5000$ per year.

Tesla has not had the support of the government for years. At best, they've had outright support for three months.

Surprise surprise.

Rip out the cushions.. take the HVAC.. who needs windows? Just leave them open Speakers? Who needs to listen to stuff Take the air bags out

Incorrect. It was always 2025. Why do you make stuff up and push baseless accusations?

Tesla originally intended to build its more affordable car on the Next-Generation Vehicle (NGV) Platform, the same platform as Cybercab. * Source: Page 158 of Tesla's Investor Day 2023 slide deck shows that Tesla targeted a 50% cost reduction per vehicle compared to existing Model 3/Y at the time. Just under a year later, after the Reuters report on NGV being cancelled, Tesla's Q2 2024 investor slide deck stated on page 10: * *"Plans for new vehicles, including more affordable models, remain on track for start of production in the first half of 2025. These vehicles will utilize aspects of the next generation platform as well as aspects of our current platforms and will be able to be produced on the same manufacturing lines as our current vehicle line-up. This approach will result in achieving less cost reduction than previously expected but enables us to prudently grow our vehicle volumes in a more capex efficient manner during uncertain times."* Tesla did scrap the original NGV previewed at Investor Day 2023. The Reuters report on this was accurate. Tesla's own investor materials state that they drastically changed plans and that the new cars would be more expensive than the NGV and produced in lower volumes. I've been a TSLA shareholder since 2011 and look at all investor materials closely. Anyone who believed Elon Musk's claims that the Reuters report was untrue, was played for a fool. NGV was canceled and replaced with a far less ambitious vehicle. The "more affordable model" pitched to investors in 2023 is NOT the same car that Musk ordered the company to shift to in early 2024.

Cybertruck has 800V and V2L. It also has steer-by-wire, which no other vehicle has.

I think average American significantly underestimates how much the Chinese make these days. China is cheaper than the US but not like it was a decade ago. China isn't the center of technology manufacturing because it's the cheapest. It's because they're the best at it. Other places are cheaper than China these days.

It's also an ugly piece of crap that will go down as one of the worst cars of all time. Probably will stop making them all together in a few years at most

It's the top-selling electric truck, but ok. Your opinion doesn't matter. I'm just explaining to you that Tesla has this technology.

I don't think any of that will be useful on a new lower cost model. They'll need to redesign everything. It was the top selling EV truck for one quarter when they were getting through all the backlog of reservations. That's it.

That wasn't the argument. The guy was saying Tesla should have these things, and I was explaining that they already do. But if you do want to argue that, steer-by-wire at the very least does lower cost. Maybe 800V as well. Not V2L though. That's an added cost that they likely won't include on a lower cost model. It was the top-selling electric truck for the whole of last year and likely will be this year too.

Lars said in an interview they plan on a 20% reduction. They are doing it in Mexico already.

Tesla earnings report will be exciting.

Producing 50 vehicle models in the time it took for Tesla to build 5 isn’t solely due to government backing (using the example of BYD). They are simply better car manufacturers and operate and innovate faster. Tesla haven’t produced a new mass market vehicle in 5 years. Meanwhile, in the last two years alone BYD started exporting 7 models to my Southeast Asian market.

I find them quite attractive and they sure are unique this one will be a lifer for them, Refinement vs redesign will be the motto. I would buy one if a truck is what I desire.

From what I’ve noticed, the stock only drops when there’s good news in China

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When did they announce V2L for the model Y?

Lmao who is "they"?

Watching the CyberCab reveal live, it was clear that the "CyberCab" had every feature a Model 2 would and no features a CyberCab would. 2 seats, low access height, minimal travel storage. The CyberCab IS the Model 2. I guarantee that teams are pleading with Elon to keep **that** as the Model 2 it was intended to be and design an appropriate CyberCab on the same platform, but Elon is too far gone to hear it and listen.

My state (California) HEAVILY subsidized Tesla. Biden had the EV credit which was also a massive subsidy. If you think Tesla hasn't been consistently propped up by public resources for the last decade you're not a serious person.

It’s the unboxed process, basically dividing the vehicle into sections or modules that are painted separately and assembled at the end, instead of body in white. Also they have been consolidating the number of electronic control modules to reduce complexity.

Production timelines slip all the time for manufacturers.

If you think anyone in China is beyond Tesla you know nothing of EV tech.

The tarrifs on are the cost of the parts in the car. So if it costs $30k to make a Tesla and $3k is imported. There's a tariff on $3k, not the full cost. Every other car company in the US is in far worse shape with tariffs. Tesla is the clear winner.

Delusional

Jim Cramer Inverse ETF vs Reverse Reddit Index

This is a joke. California and the federal government have spent about [one billion and nine billion dollars](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047272722001542) respectively on EV subsidies. Meanwhile [China has poured a staggering 230 billion dollars](https://www.csis.org/blogs/trustee-china-hand/chinese-ev-dilemma-subsidized-yet-striking) into EV subsidies. That's what "heavily" subsidized actually means.

800v, 48v power over Ethernet and steer by wire will all be extremely useful tech in a cheaper car. Remember one of the goals with the cybertruck was to make it cheap. They didn’t achieve that but they were trying. Cybertruck uses 70% less wire than it would have by using 48v PoE.

Wouldn’t the real model 2 have a steering wheel and glass rear hatch? Or are you thinking just BYOC (Bring your own controller)?

Musk originally didn't want the Model Y to have a steering wheel. You bring up a good point, and I bet that is/was a major battle between Musk and his design teams for the Model 2 or CyberCab as well. We make fun of Musk for his incorrect timelines on FSD, but he has always sincerely thought they were 6 months away from FSD for like 8 years now and always predicted that having steering wheels unnecessarily raises costs.

GOOD they should make a sub brand if they want to compete with economy cars

China is good at manufacturing and IIRC churn out more engineers than any other country in the world. Also they pay workers slave wages and use coercive contracts. Two things can be true. They manipulate their currency to maintain their exports. The fact that China is no longer the cheapest option while they still pay their workers little should tell you something. The wages I cited you are the actual wages at BYD. [https://clb.org.hk/en/content/byd-workers-lead-mass-strikes-challenge-wage-cuts-and-broken-promises](https://clb.org.hk/en/content/byd-workers-lead-mass-strikes-challenge-wage-cuts-and-broken-promises) [https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinese-workers-byd-brazil-factory-signed-contracts-with-abusive-clauses-2025-01-31/](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinese-workers-byd-brazil-factory-signed-contracts-with-abusive-clauses-2025-01-31/)

Two seater is a dud though, nobody wants that (unless it's the roadster and even then...)

Do you really believe he is sincere in his belief on the timeline of FSD? I can believe in the beginning he was just that naive, but eventually he should have realized it's not happening in 6 months with his sensor restrictions.

Two seats makes sense if you want to save money to make something cheaper while not just stealing demand from your other models. More seats would make it more expensive AND too similar to a Model 3. Competing with yourself is generally a disadvantage.

Save even more money with zero seats. Nobody. Wants. It.

Insurance hike is why im not buying

I think that sometimes he's sincere-ish and other times he's propping up the stock from collapsing (I listen to every earnings call and you eventually get a feel for the difference in tone/phrasing). His biggest mistake was not biting the bullet and pivoting to LiDAR as it became cheaper and more compact. Once he made vision only the system in the Model 3 and Y he crossed the Rubicon. The mass produced vehicles collect so much data (and aren't easily retrofitted), so he can never pivot and has to say Vision only can work when you know he's been told numerous times that it can NEVER work in all conditions. For being a "1st Principles" thinker he whooshed on limiting your system to a few hundred NANOMETERS of the electromagnetic spectrum. There are molecules that will never see through because molecules absorb and emit discrete wavelengths of electromagnetic wave. It's first day of physics stuff, but he skipped that day of class I guess.

Toyota seems to do well with Camry, Corolla, and a separate Corolla-hatch. And Yaris had a good run.

Roadster is actually coming. I'll bookmark this page so I can refer back once it's announced lol.

Sure. I mean, sure there was a brief period where all the YouTubers, attention seekers, and early adopters wanted to get one to try it out or whatever, but longterm, the F-150 has already surpassed it in sales numbers for some quarters and will continue to do so to a greater degree.

I'm not saying it never happens - just that it has diminishing returns. If you open a Caribou Coffee next to a Starbucks, the Starbucks will lose some customers, but the total amount of customers between them will rise. By adding Camry's the amount of sales of Corollas goes down, BUT the total sales when you add them up is a lot higher. They absolutely do studies and fancy math to determine how to maximize total MARKET SHARE while minimizing similar models cannibalizing one another's sales. My personal opinion is that, since Tesla only sells 5 models they can maximize market share without cannibalizing sales of their other models by expanding into new market segments. Toyota already covers every market segment, so they have models that compete with each other to get more market share. Does that make sense? I mean, obviously if you're going to make a new model of any sort you want it to be compelling, which Tesla seems to have lost focus on with the CyberTruck and 2 seat CyberCab.

800v is just a concept though, and they are late to the game on it. They didn't implement it in a reusable way for a smaller cheaper car. They will have to redesign what they already have for a smaller cheaper car.

It does make sense, but I'm not sure where you stand. I'm in favor of a Model 2 along the lines of Corolla-hatch personally (seats 5). If it looks like the Cybercab, that's cool, but don't really care. I just want Tesla to make a Corolla-hatch killer.

I'm down for Tesla doing whatever they want. I bought shares back in the pre-Model S days and finally divested in 2022 after years of my FSD being a parlor trick. You know how Elon made the comment recently that "luckily almost no one bought FSD in vehicles before HW4". Well, I'm one of those almost no ones, but it saved me hundreds of thousands by convincing me to divest, so totally worth it overall.

focusing on robotaxi before perfecting self driving and putting out more affordable cars that people will want to buy is certainly a masterful gambit

Did you see what they did with the RWD Cybertruck? Basically they took out all the best features. I don't know how that would translate to the Y but seems like they could remove a lot of the things people like in the Y. I don't see how that's going to work out for Tesla. They'll just lose out to the competition.

Those just sound like cost reductions that could apply equally to the model Y with no reduction in apparent quality of features.

Tesla executives/Csuite

I know every other car company does this, but offhand I'm not even sure what the difference is. I think the Corolla is slightly bigger, but is the Camry really that much of a price difference to make the Camry (or the other way around) worth it? Also I hate the "similarly" named things. Why a Corolla hatch? Why not name it something else unless it's literally a Corolla with a hatch? IDK. To me an inch or three doesn't make sense to facilitate a whole new model line.

Didn't the numbers indicate just that?

Yes but the tooling for the Y is paid for, mostly, and transitioning to a brand new manufacturing process is expensive and risky for your best selling product.

No way in hell it’s called model 2 lmfao, I never understood why you guys keep calling it that

That’s absolutely not how that works lol

That’s why I put in quotation marks.. Tesla has never called it the model 2.. analysts (CNBC, Dan Ives, etc.) refer to it as model 2. Personally, i think Elon Musk is bored with cars and is obsessed with FSD/Robotaxi. I truly believe he wants to quit making cars (cutthroat business, tons of competition, low margins, insane cash burn, cyclical) As a disclaimer, I have a model 3 and have used FSD, but have zero faith in Robotaxi. I don’t hold any Tesla stock (and don’t plan to) but I’m also not shorting the company since the company runs on hopium.

Oh no. The trickle down effect 😔

Uh huh. And if there’s a 245% tariff on the $3000 of Chinese parts, that comes out to an extra $7350. Other countries are at a 25% tariff so another car that costs $30k to make can have 98% foreign content (besides China) and cost the same after tariffs as a Tesla with 10% Chinese content.

What!? From Reuters!? NO way!

You think 100% of Tesla's foreign parts come from China? Seriously, just stop with the delusional hope that someone Tesla stops being the best company in the world.

That China EV spending number is massive. I will definitely concede the Chinese government is investing more into its EV industry. It's too bad the US has decided to double down on "beautiful clean coal" and drilling for oil instead of investing in green technology.

Since “Domestic parts content” includes Canada and Mexico, yes the rest of the parts are likely all from China

That's the one that can fly right?

>Two seats makes sense if you want to save money to make something cheaper while not just stealing demand from your other models. They would have the data on how many people never or almost never use their back seats for passengers. Much like how they removed the lumbar from the front passenger after their metrics showed how infrequently it was used. Using that info, they probably have worked out the size of the market for a two seater. However, they probably haven't looked at the marketing side, so they will need to convince people they don't need back seats.

The 3 is already Corolla sized. The back seat is a joke if adult sized people are in the front. If you want Camry room in a Tesla you have to go to a Y.

Is the cybercab not 800v? I assumed it was. Strange they would go backwards, especially with them so focused on reducing wire gauge and weight, why not go to the thinner wires and bus systems that you would get with 800v

You literally just made that up. Why do you think it's "just a concept" and "not reusable"?

Cybertruck is selling better than F-150 Lightning: https://www.coxautoinc.com/market-insights/q4-2024-ev-sales/

Like our eyes

🤞🏻🤞🏻

Don’t trust any report unless it comes from Tesla themselves. I used to believe every news report about Tesla but it turned out maybe 20% of them were actually true.

Which makes it great for human created environments. We'll have humanoid Tesla robots walking around factories long before FSD vehicles can take me from LA to New York.

Someone will prob make that trip sometime within the next year.

Tesla. Always delayed. TM.

The “van” was mentioned way back in 2020. As others have mentioned the Roadster concept was shown in 2017 and is still not in production. Even if we see the production roadster this year, Based on seeing first van concept in 2024, we should see a production van in 2032!

Yes, when I say in public, I am talking about a production vehicle on public roads. the van was first promised in 2020, the first concept was shown in 2024. The problem is if you look at the Cybertruck it took 5 years to go from concept to production. The Roadster first concept was even worse with its announcement in 2017, still no production version. If Robovan is like the Cybertruck we could see it in 2029, if it takes after the Roadster it will be 8 years or more before a production version is available. If it follows the path of FSD it will be at least 9 years. In other words, Tesla needs to learn how to under promise and over deliver. Compared to folks like BYD, Tesla is losing ground with these 5+ year product rollouts.

Something like the RWD Cybertruck trim isn't for people to buy, it is to make the higher end trims look like a better deal.

I'm 2 S3XY. haha

But Tesla only has two popular models. Without those two it would be a niche player. Toyota and other big brands have multiple popular models.

Straight to jail

Put a steering wheel in the robotaxi....boom, "model 2"

The 3 and Y in Mexico has cloth seats, no seat warmer, no back screen I do believe, to bring price down

... and Reuters is lying, again: https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/IR/IR/TSLA-Q1-2025-Update.pdf "Plans for new vehicles, including more affordable models, remain on track for start of production in the first half of 2025. These vehicles will utilize aspects of the next generation platform as well as aspects of our current platforms and will be produced on the same manufacturing lines as our current vehicle lineup."

I guess they were lying again, unless Tesla waits until the last minute to delay production.

And this time they specifically said production starts in June, so now we have an actual date(ish).

Fake news. Tesla confirmed new models are on track and we can see the giga-castings outside the Texas factory. Tesla denied the rumor. Reuters used to be a reasonable well-trusted source of information. My, how the mighty have fallen!

Because it will cannibalize the already shrinking margins of their current lineup. There is no margin in cheap cars.

Don't believe the hype about Tesla's fall this is the dip before the three year rip

Middle of the week he makes statements to boost the stock, then the truth comes out.

RWD Model Y is out in Europe