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Musk Teases "Compact Vehicle and Higher Capacity Vehicle of Some Kind"

Elon Musk's Q2 2020 Earnings Call is not unlike the press conference of a sports team manager. You get asked lots of questions about your plans and you try to make the situation look as rosy as possible without giving too much away.
Tesla Model Y hatchback rendering 12 photos
Photo: Kleber Silva on Behance
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With the call taking a full hour during which the Tesla CEO did most of the talking, it's only natural that we have a lot to talk about ourselves. After all, even the most skilled politicians can't blab their mouths for that long without saying anything noteworthy.

So far, we've had a mixed crop. On the one hand, Musk revealed the Roadster would enter production sometime within the next 18 months - with the Semi and the Cybertruck fitting within the same schedule. On the other, he carried on with his questionable promotional techniques for the Autopilot driving aid system saying it was able to drive him from home to work with "almost no intervention."

Those two aside, it's probably this piece of information that's more worthy of our attention. Asked about Tesla's future vehicle programs that should help the company reach its long-term goal of 20 million vehicles sold every year, Musk refrained from being too explicit. “I don’t think we can comment on our detailed road map beyond what’s announced because we want to reserve that for product launches," he said, quite understandingly.

If you think back at Tesla's latest reveals, namely the Roadster and Cybertruck, they both relied heavily on the surprise factor. The former came out of nowhere during the Semi presentation, while the latter might have had its dedicated event, but that doesn't mean one person in the audience was ready for what was about to come.

"But it would be reasonable to assume that we would make a compact vehicle of some kind and probably a higher capacity vehicle of some kind." So, the electric hatchback Europe so desperately craves but no manufacturer managed to build so far will come eventually, though it could be in at least two years from now.

As for the "higher capacity vehicle," an electric van from Tesla has been long talked about. However, that's not the kind of model that would offer a significant sales boost. Unless, of course, we're talking about a Level 5 autonomous minibus that would revolutionize ride-sharing and public transport. If we're to listen to Musk, that technology for that would be just around the corner.

"These are likely things at some point. But I do think there’s a long way to go with Model 3 and Model Y, and with Cybertruck and Semi. So long way to go with those. I think we’ll do the obvious things,” the CEO concluded his answer to the question. It looks like the company will be pretty quiet until the end of next year in terms of new vehicles, focusing on delivering the already promised ones instead while leaving the Model 3 and Model Y to do their thing. Plus, let's not forget about Project Palladium and its two mysterious models that we should learn more about this September.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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