Tesla To Build Cut-Price EV In Germany: Report

Elon Musk has reportedly told workers at Tesla’s plant near Berlin that he plans to build an affordable electric vehicle at the facility.

The vehicle would be priced at about 25,000 euros (£22,000, $27,000), an unnamed source told Reuters.

Tesla has long been expected to begin offering lower-priced vehicles, part of a planned shift toward mass-market sales, but last year Musk said the company had not yet mastered the technology required to cut production costs.

Reuters said a source told it in September that the EV maker was nearing the ability to die-cast nearly all of the underbody of a vehicle in one piece, which could pave the way for a lower-cost EV that could be produced more quickly.

Die-casting tech

In September 2022 Tesla released footage of its Giga Press die-casting machine, which it said it was using to cast large parts of a vehicle as a single piece.

At the time the company said it was manufacturing the underbody of the Model Y in two pieces, instead of dozens of distinct parts.

Musk said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, which he owns, that he was visiting the plant in Gruenheide on Friday after attending last week’s AI summit at Bletchley Park in the UK.

He informed staff about the less expensive EV during that visit, Reuters said.

Capacity boost

The factory currently produces the Model Y, Europe’s best-selling EV, at a rate of about 250,000 vehicles per year, Tesla said in March.

The firm plans to double the factory’s capacity to 1 million vehicles per year, with local authorities saying in October they had asked Tesla to submit further information on how the plans would adhere to  nature conservation requirements.

Tesla’s shares were up about 2 percent in early US trading.