Nov 5 (Reuters) - When Reuters reported in April that Tesla had scrapped plans for a long-promised, next-generation $25,000 electric vehicle, the automaker’s stock plunged. Chief Executive Elon Musk rushed to respond on X, his social-media network.

“Reuters is lying,” he posted without elaborating. Tesla’s stock recovered some of its losses.

Six months later, Musk appears to have backed into an admission that Tesla dropped its plans for a human-driven $25,000 car. He said in an Oct. 23 earnings call that building the affordable EV would be "pointless” unless the car was fully autonomous.

His latest remarks came in response to an investor asking: “When can we expect Tesla to give us the $25,000 non-robotaxi regular car model?”

Musk responded: “We’re not making a non-robo…,” before he was interrupted by another Tesla executive. Musk later added: “Basically, I think having a regular $25K model is pointless. It would be silly.”

  • theshatterstone54@feddit.uk
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    3 hours ago

    Right, so that was his plan all along?

    Keep on promising a full self driving experience, which even now won’t really happen,

    and then promising an affordable Tesla,

    which he can then backtrack on?

    Overpromise and underdeliver.

    That’s the Musk motto.

    Can’t wait to see him fail to bring humanity to Mars, and end up trying to credit himself when NASA do it.

  • skozzii@lemmy.ca
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    5 hours ago

    Tesla stock is by far the most overvalued stock in the world, and its not even close.

    The only thing close to it is the worthless djt stock that dictators use to funnel money to fund the poisoning of our democracy.

  • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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    4 hours ago

    It’s a weird design for a robotaxi specific car. I guess it can be cheap as a 2 seater. But other manufacturers are investing in the robotics needed for low cost cars. The aero dynamics aren’t typically helpful for taxis. I understand he will try to milk existing models until FSD instead of innovating on them.

  • psmgx@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    Translated: the Chinese won that battle, and TSLA doesn’t have enough R&D to chase self-driving and cheap, esp. given how unimpressive their self driving is compared to competitors

  • smb@lemmy.ml
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    14 hours ago

    i’ld like this summary the most:

    Musk now says it’s ‘pointless’ to build a Tesla

    😁