Stop the presses, folks. We’ve got a big, groundbreaking story here. A BIG story indeed. We just got word that Tesla will soon have a new small electric vehicle that will run almost entirely in autonomous mode. And it costs about half of the current one Tesla model 3. It’s handy just around the corner where you can’t see it and prove it isn’t happening, but it certainly is. Real.
Auto Scoops reports that Elon Musk spoke yesterday at the Morgan Stanley Conference about the upcoming small car, which will presumably be called the Model 2. You would think he would have said more about it during Tesla’s Investor Day 2023, but no. He saved the good stuff for the fine people at Morgan Stanley.
“There’s a clear path to making a vehicle, a smaller vehicle, that costs about half the production cost of our Model 3,” Musk said at the conference. “That vehicle will be operated almost entirely in autonomous mode. What is huge for Tesla is autonomy. And people who have used the Tesla Full-Self Driving and seen how quickly the Full-Self Driving capabilities have evolved, it should be clear that that is the most profound. [for Tesla].”
And since Elon Musk said it himself, you know you can believe it. Not only will there soon be a $25,000 Tesla you can buy, but it will also be super duper autonomous. You hardly have to drive it, if it ever happens. And no, you don’t have to educate the fully autonomous cross-country ride that never happened. Or the recall of Tesla’s so-called Full Self-Driving software. Or one of the other studies into how insecure Tesla’s software is. Or Musk’s weird insistence that it can become fully autonomous with cameras alone, despite the fact that every other automaker and self-driving startup uses radar and lidar in conjunction with cameras. That would only make you a hater.
Likewise, if you dare suggest that I won’t be 6’4″ this year, win the Powerball, retire at 35, buy a yacht, and date Emily Ratajkowski, then you’re a hater too. Those things all happen sure., and it’s incredibly rude of you to suggest otherwise.