Tesla’s Musk Says Next-Gen Small Car Will be Autonomous — Mostly

When Tesla rolls out its next generation of vehicles, expect they drive themselves off the production line.

That may be a bit of an exaggeration; however, just little more than a week after investors were disappointed to not get a look at the company’s next-generation vehicle, CEO Elon Musk told a group in China the new small car model would likely be largely autonomous.

It’s not the first time Musk has made this commitment. He said basically the same in 2020 when he talked about a small car. Then he said the company would build a $25,000 car within the next three years ago.

On Tuesday, he reiterated many of the talking points from his investor day presentation last week. Specifically, he said the company was tracking to cut the production costs of vehicles in half, according to Reuters. However, he failed to offer any details about what models might be coming or when they would arrive. 

Making progress

Musk talked a bit about what some have dubbed the Model 2 at Investor Day at the company’s Gigafactory Texas near Austin, Texas, March 2. Instead, he talked at some length about the company’s future plans or “Master Plan 3.”

Much of that focused on how the company is changing the manufacturing process to make it simpler — and needing fewer people — so it can cut costs.

“We simplified assembly with the Model Y’s structural battery, where we decided the floor should be a part of the car,” said Lars Moravy, Tesla’s chief engineer. “The battery is the floor. We put the seats in the interior on the battery, and we bring it up through a big open hole and we assemble it. 

“This allowed us to do things in parallel, fully rethinking the process — and reducing the final assembly line by about 10%. And we thought maybe we could do this other places.”

Moravy went on to describe the assembly process for future EVs, which he called an “unboxed” model. He said it would deliver cut costs by snapping together sub-assemblies and reducing complexity and time in assembly.

Other executives came on to the stage to explain how the company cuts costs in other ways, such as eliminating sunroofs because no one used them. In all, they speculate they can cut the costs by half, much of that resulting in headcount reductions.

“It’s coming. They laid it all out. 50% less cost to build. Would get you a $25-$30k EV!” tweeted Tesla investor Ross Gerber, who is co-founder, CEO and CIO of investment firm Gerber Kawasaki. 

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• Source: https://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2023/03/teslas-musk-says-next-gen-small-car-will-be-autonomous-mostly/