Apart from autonowashing and moving Tesla’s headquarters to Texas, Elon Musk seized the 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders to state that there is no Model 2, as people have been naming the future entry-level car developed in China. If you were expecting to eventually buy one, don’t worry: the vehicle will be there, but not with this name.
Musk mentioned something important that most name-guessers missed when they decided the entry-level Tesla would be called Model 2. The original plan for the Model 3 was to call it Model E. It would be the E in the SEXY lineup the Tesla CEO planned to have, but Ford threatened to sue the company for trademark infringement. This is how it ended up being the Model 3, with a logo that can also be read as E.
For the ones that may interpret what Musk said as a veiled cancellation for ist $25,000 car, there is plenty of evidence that it is still on track. Everything started when Tesla launched a design contest in January 2020. At first, it seemed to be part of the plans to have a design center at Giga Shanghai, but it ended up being more than that.
At the Tesla Battery Day, the company revealed that the entry-level car would have LFP (lithium iron phosphate) cells. They are already used by the Model 3 and Model Y Standard Range versions in China and have price and reliability advantages compared to ternary batteries. Their downside is the lower energy density, which makes them heavier for the same amount of energy.
Despite that, Musk said at the meeting that he would not change the product output if he had five extra products. That probably means that the Chinese vehicle development is on hold due to the supply shortage that is affecting car production worldwide. The Tesla CEO said it is not limited to chips.
That means we’ll probably take a long time to learn how Tesla intends to name its entry-level car. What Musk promised is that it will make the ATV and that the plan is to make it impossible to roll over. When Tesla gets there, it would be the ideal sidekick to the Cybertruck, a vehicle that is already officially postponed to the end of 2022.
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