When Reuters reported in April that Tesla had scrapped plans for a long-promised, next-generation $25,000 electric vehicle, the automaker’s stock plunged. Chief Executive Elon Musk rushed to respond on X, his social-media network.

“Reuters is lying,” he posted, without elaborating. Tesla’s stock recovered some of its losses.

Six months later, Musk appears to have backed into an admission that Tesla dropped its plans for a human-driven $25,000 car. He said in an Oct. 23 earnings call that building the affordable EV would be "pointless” unless the car was fully autonomous.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    “We can’t make an affordable Tesla unless we come up with something that would make it too expensive.”

    Gotcha.

  • adarza@lemmy.ca
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    10 minutes ago

    he’s still building the car. it’s just the price will be double or more.

    • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Until we tax them ridiculously (50-100%) to keep things “fair” for the american auto makers that refuse to build anything smaller than a chevorlet suburban.

      • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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        4 minutes ago

        Along with European, Japanese, and South Korean automakers. Nobody is building EVs this cheap because no other country’s government is dumping hundreds of billions of dollars into selling them well below their actual cost.

    • SendMePhotos@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      I so badly just want a tiny electric vehicle. I don’t travel much. Just need it to go around town and maybe a town over.