As laid out in Elon Musk’s first missive regarding Tesla’s “Secret Master Plan,” the company’s longstanding goal has always been rather simple: release an affordable EV for the masses. Indeed, all the cars Tesla started out with — from the original Roadster to the Model X — were done to kickstart the EV revolution into high gear and help bankroll a mass market EV that would eventually become known as the Model 3.
Tesla’s Model 3 certainly isn’t the cheapest car around, but it does provide a solid bang for the buck in the $35,000 price range. Still, prospective buyers interested in picking up a Model 3 for just $35,000 still need to exercise some patience as Tesla, for the time being, is prioritizing buyers interested in purchasing souped up Model 3 units in the $50,000 rage. As to Tesla’s reasoning, Musk earlier this year said that it all comes down to generating as much cash in the short-term as possible.
“Shipping the min cost Model 3 right now would cause Tesla to lose money and die,” Musk said on Twitter this past May. “Need 3 to 6 months after 5k/wk to ship $35k Tesla & live.”
That said, the mythical $35,000 Model 3 likely won’t be available until September at the absolute earliest given that Tesla didn’t hit a production rate of 5,000 units per week until the end of June.
Looking beyond the current year, Tesla has plans to make the Model 3 even more affordable. As part of an interview Musk recently conducted with Marques Brownlee, Musk said that he hopes to ultimately ship a Tesla in the $25,000 range. But don’t get too excited just yet as Musk indicated that such a car might be still be a good three years away.
“[Tesla is] really focused on making cars more affordable,” Musk explained, “which is really tough. In order to make cars more affordable, you need high volume and economies of scale.”
“I think in order for us to get up to a $25,000 car, that’s something we can do,” Musk said. “But if we work really hard I think maybe we can do that in about 3 years.”
The full interview can be seen below.
