Tesla CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly announced the development of the first low-cost Tesla electric car model. He even denied recent rumors that the project has been cancelled.
Tesla has really put on the back burner the project dedicated to the creation of a future budget electric car worth 25 thousand US dollars, writes Electrek with reference to internal sources.
According to the publication's interlocutors, the project had the code name NV9. As part of the project, the company is working on a next-generation automotive platform that is expected to provide much cheaper electric cars.
Earlier, the automaker talked about two future cars on this platform. These are the cheaper and smaller Model 3 car known as the $25,000 Tesla, or Model 2, and the new Tesla Robotaxi self-driving car.
In December, Musk confirmed that he told the Tesla team in Austin that the NV9 and the expansion of the Texas Gigafactory for a new, cheaper next-generation model were priorities for 2024.
More recently, however, the project was completely defunded, and many of the people involved were fired
Instead, Musk wants to focus on Robotaxi and building a giant data center for it. The project was supposed to be completed by the end of August, but is reportedly already behind schedule.