Tesla scraps its plan for a $25,000 Model 2 EV
Tesla scraps its plan for a $25,000 Model 2 EV
arstechnica.com
Tesla scraps its plan for a $25,000 Model 2 EV
109 comments
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This is an easy test. If Reuters is lying, that means the Model 2 is still in development. Prove that Reuters is lying, Elon. you are uniquely positioned to be able to do that.
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Best he can do is be an insufferable jackass.
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Shouldn't be a big deal: Why would anyone still buy a Tesla at this point? If someone is going to buy a car they probably don't want something with garbage build quality and shitty support.
Those Volvos are looking kinda good though...
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There's just so many better options than Tesla these days.
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Such as…?
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Depends on what you're looking for. I had a high paying tech job (layoffs op), and I wanted a fun car that accelerates fast but also is a good daily driver. I was in the ~60k price range, so I was looking at things like the Corvette Stingray, but there are too many compromises for that car in terms of daily driving.
The Model 3 accelerates faster 0-30, and the same speed 0-60. Off the line it feels way snappier and responsive because it's electric, and the battery makes its center of gravity lower, so it's remarkably good at cornering for a sedan, being more comparable to a sports car in terms of cornering capabilities than a sedan.
Those aren't normally considerations for people trying to find a good value commuter car, so you would literally just ignore all those advantages. Yet people don't criticize Corvette owners for not choosing a Hyundai lol
On the daily driving front, Tesla wins out massively over other high performance cars in that price range. Being able to charge up at home, never going to a gas station, best in class driving automation/assistance software, simple interior with good control panel software, one pedal driving with regen breaking.
If you're in the 40k price range for a daily commuter, your criteria will be totally different, and I am not well versed enough in the normal considerations of that price tier and category to speak confidently to what's the best value. Tesla does however, at the very least, have a niche in the high performance sedan market.
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There are some people who really love their teslas. They don't have any models that fit what I want so I ignore them.
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Sorry, I know this is controversial and I'll probably get down voted to hell, but I love my model Y Tesla and I think the full self driving is amazing (I didn't pay for it, there's a free trial this month). Musk is an idiot and an asshole but there's a lot more people working at Tesla that made some amazing vehicles.
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Just to be clear, "Full Self Driving" is the marketing name for the product. You are instructed to keep your hands on the wheel at all times and Tesla accepts no responsibility at all if it screws up (unlike Mercedes, who takes responsibility for their level 3 autonomous driving service).
And for other people who happen to read this, the only reason Tesla may seem ahead with their technology is that they just don't care about safety. Tesla won't have a safe product until they actually accept responsibility for their product's failings.
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That thing you have a free trial for just comes as standard in other cars at that price...
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Judging by the amount of Teslas I encounter in traffic it seems like there's plenty of reasons for people to buy one. It's a highly desired car. This anti-Tesla/Elon attitude isn't particularly common outside social media.
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Scrapped my plans to buy a Tesla a while ago!
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They can't make a good car at triple the price. Why would anyone buy this one?
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I don’t think that’s how Tesla owners feel. 🤔 I think most are pretty happy. (Me included)
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Personally I was shopping Tesla Model Y vs Chevy Blazer. At a glance, this seems to fall right in with what you’re saying but the reality was very different.
- Tesla started off with an advantage by actually being available
- even when Blazer was released, as a new model, it had much worse quality issues, very little availability, and huge markups
- Tesla was a mature model, with no quality issues
- Tesla was much less expensive
- Tesla was rated 100 miles more range
- Tesla is much more efficient
- Tesla has an outstanding charging network
- Tesla has a much easier purchasing process, with fewer middlemen to scam profits
- Tesla software and automation is on a whole different level
The decision really wasn’t close
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Hey, I'm happy you're happy. But Tesla absolutely still has quality control issues.
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Regarding the sales process: in Tesla's early days, they received an exception to the requirement for needing to use dealerships. Generally this is very shady and is outright unfair towards other car manufacturers—even Rivian didn't get this same special treatment because lawmakers saw how Tesla abused it.
Tesla's growing monopoly on charging networks isn't something to be proud of, in my opinion, and neither is their proprietary charging cable. We need open standards.
Also, Tesla's mileage estimates are notoriously exaggerated. Perhaps technically you can get the claimed range if the entire trip is downhill…
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It's absolutely amazing to me how in this singular issue, thousands of people will be like "my experience is different from the internet's conventional wisdom" and still like 40% of the people will be like "no, that is not allowed here."
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They can't figure out what quality assurance checks they can cut further?
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The model is delayed because they haven't finished replacing the steering wheel with a touch screen.
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Electric cars are for saving the auto industry, not the planet. End car dependency.
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For all the infallible saints and self-righteous pontificators in the comment section, it's okay to want Tesla to be successful and and make better cars, and also not want Elon Musk in charge of it.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Tesla has abandoned plans to develop an affordable electric Model 2, according to a report in Reuters.
The news organization says it has reviewed company messages that say the affordable Model 2, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed would sell for $25,000 or less, has been axed.
Then, this March, Musk told Tesla workers that the Model 2 would go into production at the company's factory in Berlin.
In light of this news, that statement certainly raises eyebrows—Reuters reports that one of its three unnamed sources told it that the decision to scrap the Model 2 was made in late February.
Instead, Musk is allegedly "all in on robotaxi," Tesla's plan to create an autonomous driving system that could allow its cars to compete with Uber or Lyft without a driver in the equation.
Earlier this week, Tesla posted its worst delivery results since 2020, with an 8.5 percent drop in deliveries year over year and yet another quarter of overproduction that has left the electric carmaker with nearly 150,000 vehicles produced but unsold.
The original article contains 302 words, the summary contains 174 words. Saved 42%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
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Don't have compete with BYD if you don't allow them to be competition in the US.
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Or, the real reason.
As the manbaby he is, and given the reason it would be named '2' (so that the lineup would be 2S3XY), someone informed him of that shirtless picture on the yacht and the incomming endless memes about him being 2S3XY for his shirt.
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I can’t speak to whether this is true, but Musk did later that day announce that the Robotaxi release will be August 8th, which he’s always said is going to be on the same platform. I don’t see why they wouldn’t also make the “model 2” once they are to scale since not all people want to use / will trust robotaxi at first. But any announcements they make on this car before they can actually deliver will take sales away from their models available now.
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Musk says a lot of things that aren't true
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8/8 for all his Nazi followers.
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Autonomous driving has always been his go-to pump when the stock price drops.
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Right, everyone needs to chill out and realize this is all rumor. You shouldn’t trust any of it too much.
- Musk is probably saying what they do intend to do, whether they can do it on time or not, or risk another visit from SEC
- cancelling model 2 is a rumor from unknown source that may or may not be true
- even if it’s true, it may mean cancelling a specific project but doesn’t mean the goal has changed
- even if it’s true, it may mean focussing on robotaxi first, and not necessarily change overall goals
- even if it’s true and they realized they can’t compete in that segment profitably, there may be an alternate or changed plan we don’t know about yet
Right now it’s almost more entertainment value than actually what will happen, so let’s all sit around and gossip, but not expect it to mean much.
Here’s my contribution to the rumor mill: given the cost of FSD added to existing vehicles, a robotaxi would be more expensive and higher profit. Of course they’d want to do that first. It also fits with the Tesla long term strategy of starting with high cost vehicles first, to help fund mass market vehicles later, and over-optimistic technology ambitions. You heard it here first, absolutely guaranteed to be true by this random internet user, and with no basis in reality, the plan is to use robotaxi to pay for the development and factory for Model 2
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Well there goes my chance to own a Tesla.
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Don't worry, you're not missing out on much.
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A new one maybe, but the used ones are coming down in price pretty quickly. I've seen a few model 3s over the last few months at the $25k mark.
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What is up with all these haters. My friend has a model Y for 3yrs now and never had any issues. It is a great car. Panels gaps are fine, no ratlling dash. I drove it and I loved it! If I could afford it, I would buy the new model 3.
Maybe Europe has different standards but they're great cars!
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If you completely take Musk out of the equation, my issues with Tesla are:
- The whole carbon credits thing
- The price point is premium, but the build quality often isn't
- Other companies have largely eaten their lunch, launching solid EV's that rival or better Tesla
- Their reputation was built off of the end-goal of mass-producing affordable EV's, something they will now not do.
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Not that I want to defend Musk, but
The whole carbon credits thing
I suppose here he just used something that was present, like many other entities
Other companies have largely eaten their lunch, launching solid EV’s that rival or better Tesla
Yes, only after Tesla show that it is possible to make a nice EV car. Do you remember all the EV cars before Tesla.
Their reputation was built off of the end-goal of mass-producing affordable EV’s, something they will now not do.
Given they started from scratch, I'd say the are not that bad
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Survivor bias is a thing. One car not having issues doesn't mean all or majority of them don't. Besides I think people have their expectations messed up. For a 60k$ car it has to be perfect, not just "not having issues" because in ICE world that amount of money buys you some seriously good car.
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Survivor bias is a thing.
Yes, but normally also the fact that only who has problems is vocal about them.
One car not having issues doesn’t mean all or majority of them don’t.
True, but also does not means that the majority of them had problems.
For a 60k$ car it has to be perfect, not just “not having issues” because in ICE world that amount of money buys you some seriously good car.
Good luck with this.
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Plus what’s up with hating a company just because it’s CEO is an outspoken dickhead? He doesn’t even seem to be paying attention to Tesla anymore, so can’t we decide on a company’s products, by what the company actually does?
And I’ll agree, maybe the rest of the world has other choices, but in the US, there are good reasons Tesla dominates the EV market. You don’t have to agree, but should be able to see the reality
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Tesla's image and public perception was built mostly on the salesmanship of Elon Musk the man (mainly through self-agrandising promises, like the Cyber Truck and just straightforward deceit like calling their driving assist "full self driving"), on the consumer side more so early on and on the investor side still very much so even today (hence Tesla's "Tech startup" kind of market valuation rather than an "auto maker" kind, though that seems to have started correcting).
So it absolutelly makes sense that as trust in Elon Musk the man goes down, so goes trust in his promises and favorable portrayal of his companies' and their products, and hence the massive PR around Tesla built by him is collapsing along with the public perception of him (it makes no logical sense to expect that a company controled by somebody one sees as a scam artist would impeccably honest and ethical and their products trully delivered on what's promised in their glitzy marketing materials).
Had Tesla's image not been build up almost entirelly on "Trust Elon Musk he's a visionary" you would've been right, but as it it is your "argument" comes out as one side "cake and eat it" fanboyism.
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109 comments
Fucking embarrassing.
No need for press offices when you are a Musk.
100% of his issues started the exact moment he fired his publicist.