Model Y

Make
Tesla
Segment
SUV

Tesla may have just teased a new model in a video about its Engineering HQ in Palo Alto, California. Most of the video is pretty ordinary, showing brief glimpses of Tesla products that we've seen already. The potentially interesting bit comes in at the 11:36 mark. In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, a vehicle appears under a black cover that could be the long-rumored next-generation platform that may be announced next month at Tesla Investor Day. Or it could be nothing.

The shape under the cover looks like the 2023 Tesla Model Y, meaning all of this speculation could be for naught. If this is in fact a new model, the most likely possibility is the rumored $25,000 model positioned below the Model Y that was recently spotted in prototype form.

Even under a cover, we can clearly see that the vehicle in the video is not the same as the mystery Tesla model that was spotted in public this week. The car raises in the back (evidence of a small spoiler), creating a shape that isn't there on the test mule pictured below.

Unless Tesla was testing its new model with a completely different body on top, there's little chance that the two cars are related.

Following the brief glimpse of a car under the cover, the Tesla video shows design sketches, including one of a smaller model that's been floating around since 2020. These sketches could be a hint at a new model, or they could likely be drawings that later became the Model 3 and Model Y. They do look a bit smaller than Tesla's existing models, but design sketches have a tendency to be overly small or overly large to emphasize the proportions.

Thus far, there hasn't been much concrete evidence that Tesla's long-anticipated $25,000 EV is anything other than a dream. Perhaps we will get more information on March 1 during Investor Day.