According to foreign media reports, investors have been counting on affordable electric vehicles to promote Tesla to grow into a mass market-oriented carmaker, but according to news disclosed by insiders and seen by Reuters, Tesla has cancelled affordable electric vehicles and will continue to develop driverless taxis (robotaxi) on the same small car platform.
Two people familiar with the matter said they learned of Tesla’s decision to give up Model 2, or affordable cars, at a meeting attended by dozens of employees, one of whom said the meeting was held in late February.
“Elon’s instructions are to make every effort to develop self-driving taxis,” one of them said.
Another person familiar with the matter also confirmed that Tesla cancelled the affordable car plan and said the new plan calls for the production of self-driving taxis, but production is expected to be much lower than expected for Model 2.
Reuters reviewed several pieces of information about Tesla’s decision, including a message sent by an affordable car project manager on March 1 that the manager discussed with engineers about the termination of the project.
and advised them to postpone the news of the “project cancellation” to the supplier.
Another person familiar with Tesla’s plans expressed optimism about Tesla’s decision to shift from an affordable car strategy to a driverless taxi, which Musk sees as the future of mobile travel.
But the person familiar with the matter cautioned that Tesla’s product plans could change again depending on the economy.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment, while Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote on social media platform X, “Reuters is lying.
” But he did not provide details.
Shortly after, Musk posted on X that Tesla would launch a driverless taxi on Aug. 8. On the same day, Musk responded to a Tesla investor with an emoji “eyes” in another post, who speculated that Tesla was devoting more resources to bringing driverless taxis to market.
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