Last week, new reports were released on the development of the rumored and highly anticipated $25,000 Tesla car. This is the affordable car Elon Musk mentioned on Battery Day in September that is expected to be designed and manufactured at Tesla's Chinese facility.
Let's take a look at everything we know so far and speculate about what this car is really about. Tesla china president, Tom Zhu, recently spoke to a china-based state media channel. In the interview posted on February 8th, Tom Zhu gives us some interesting statistics about the production from the Shanghai factory.
They currently build cars at a production rate of 250,000 a year, but expect that number to rise to 450,000 annual production capacities in 2021. Tesla China will use a 100 locally sourced parts supply and new research and development center in Giga Shanghai will be operational by the middle of this year.
Tom Zhu explained that this R&D center is the first one outside of the US. The research and development center has all the necessary disciplines covering vehicle design, vehicle engineering, vehicle development, and vehicle testing.
He confirmed what we already know that the new tesla developed in china will be the cheapest vehicle that we have seen yet from the brand with a price target of around 25 000 us dollars and it will be available worldwide.
Whether or not the vehicle could go into production in 2021 is something so many people jumped on as a rumor and Tom Zhu pretty much squashed that timeline. He said in the future Tesla wants to design, develop and manufacture an original model in China, which is sold across the whole world.
The practical design phase for this car has not yet begun and will not begin until the new research and development facility is completed. And that won't happen until the middle of this year. That doesn't mean the process can't be very quick once it starts, but you can't get a car from design to production in six months, or at least it can't be a good one.
It seems we're more likely to see a concept car debut in 2022, and production models through 2023. That seems just a little more reasonable.
