The decision represents an abandonment of a longstanding goal that Tesla chief Elon Musk has often characterized as its primary mission: affordable electric cars for the masses. His first “master plan”, opens new tab for the company in 2006 called for manufacturing luxury models first, then using the profits to finance a “low cost family car.”
Tesla shares were down about 3% in early afternoon trading after the Reuters report.
Musk has since repeatedly promised such a vehicle to investors and consumers. As recently as January, Musk told investors that Tesla planned to start production of the affordable model at its Texas factory in the second half of 2025, following an exclusive Reuters report detailing those plans.
BYD (Chinese company) is building an auto plant in Mexico specifically so they can sell in the North American market. Their EVs are actually pretty decent and sold like hotcakes in SEA and home markets. They’re set to produce and sell locally in Europe, Africa, SA and NA now. Their cars are targetting the sub-$20k-$24k market. Overseas their cars sell for the equivalent of $14k-$19k
Does this mean BYD will be able to sell Mexican produced cars in America?
I’d honestly be surprised if they didn’t update the laws to prevent Chinese competition no matter what the companies do. They’ve done it for the auto industry in the past, to countries they’re not hostile towards, and they’ve done it to Chinese companies in other industries with substantial lobbying dollars, notably phones, IT infra, social media, and weapon manufacture.
There is Mexican competition too in this sector. They’re building their own national brand of EV and are gunning to beat BYD to the market.
And despite the Lemmy/Reddit circle jerk that “EVs are bad”, BYD pass the notoriously strict Australian safety standards and sell well here. The BYD Seal seems to be everywhere of late