As for when we'll see these new models, that's anyone's guess.
At Tesla's 2023 Annual Shareholders' Meeting, Elon Musk teased what is an all-new product from the EV giant, one of two new cars that we can expect from the EV giant. In typical Musk style, the CEO made some extremely bold claims about these new products, saying that he expects the company to produce "in excess of five million units" combined on an annual basis. With those estimates, we can expect at least one of these vehicles to be on the more affordable end of the price spectrum.
"I just want to emphasize that we are actually building a new product [and] we are designing a new product. We're not sitting on our hands here," said Musk in a likely attempt to reassure anyone who had given up hope of new Teslas. "There are two new products that I think you will be very excited about."
The shadowy silhouette of the one EV that was teased was brought to life by Bradford Ferguson on Twitter who used a generative AI program, and this allowed us to get a more detailed idea of what it could look like.
The general consensus seems to be that this is a crossover roughly the same size as the Model Y. As with all current Teslas, the car isn't overstyled at all, with seamless door handles and a smoothly contoured body that should be highly aerodynamic.
While unlikely to age quickly, the design is very much in the realm of current Teslas so isn't at all revolutionary. As for the second EV that was mentioned but not actually shown, we don't know what body style it may have.
"Both the design of the products and the manufacturing techniques are head and shoulders above anything else that is present in the industry," said Musk in the video below, who also specified that he wants a "dedicated product launch."
As this was merely a teaser, no technical information was shared.
Last month, Tesla teased two new models but these were both hidden under sheets. One of them is presumed to be the smaller Model 2 on a next-generation platform (this name is not yet confirmed) which was rumored to be priced at around the $25,000 mark. This compact model will have a 53-kWh battery, but a larger midsized model is also coming with a 75-kWh battery. A Tesla robotaxi is another possibility, but the newly teased crossover looks like it's destined for customers who will be doing the driving themselves.
Also this year, Tesla said that the Model 2 would operate as an autonomous vehicle most of the time, another claim that seems difficult to achieve in the current climate. A prototype of the Model 2 was also spied earlier this year but with bodywork that seemed to mirror a Mazda CX-30.
Overall, there are more questions than there are answers about Tesla's new EVs at this point, but that's par for the course for this company and Musk in general. While our hopes have been raised now that a new car has been officially teased, it's hard to forget about the painfully long gestation period of the Cybertruck, a vehicle that was teased in 2019 and still isn't in showrooms.
Applying the same timeline to the Model 2 suggests that it won't arrive before 2027, but we do hope that Tesla will prove us wrong.
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