Teslas under 200,000 are coming! Musk's official announcement: It will be listed as early as next year

On November 6, according to foreign media information, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during a visit to the Berlin Gigafactory in Germany on Friday local time that electric vehicles below 25,000 US dollars (equivalent to 182,000 yuan) would be produced in the Gigafactory.

In fact, Tesla raised the topic of "producing models under $25,000" as early as September 2020, but so far, Tesla has not released information about this model.

However, Musk mentioned in a recent financial conference call that Tesla will launch a new model focusing on cost performance in 2025, tentatively named Model 2, and the new car will be built with a new platform, and the production speed will be further improved.

Source: X

Although Tesla continues to reduce the price of vehicles to improve its market competitiveness, the price of the cheapest model, the Model 3, was once reduced to 229,900 yuan at the beginning of this year, setting the lowest price in the history of domestic Tesla, but the price is still not lower than the standard of 25,000 US dollars.

It is worth noting that although Tesla implemented a price reduction promotion strategy in 2022, its profitability still crushes other new energy vehicle brands. According to the 2022 financial report, Tesla's gross profit margin in 2022 will be 25.6%, while the gross profit margins of Ideal, Xpeng, NIO, and Leap will be 19.4%, 11.5%, 10.4%, and -15.4%, respectively.

Although each car company is at different stages of development, it is obvious from the data that even if Tesla repeatedly cuts prices, its profits are still much higher than those of other car companies, which is why Tesla has the confidence to produce lower-priced models to improve market coverage.

Source: Tesla

For many new energy vehicle companies, the low-price strategy is a big challenge for enterprise cost control, and only through technological upgrading can the product maintain strong competitiveness in the low-price range.

Tesla, for example, has reduced its BOM cost from $84,000 in 2017 to $36,000 through technological innovation. There is also its self-developed "4680" battery, according to Tesla, the battery diameter is 46mm, the height is 80mm, the battery energy is increased by 5 times, the vehicle mileage can be increased by 16%, the power is increased by 6 times compared with the battery with tabs, and the power output is increased by 6 times. Once mass production is achieved, Tesla's car manufacturing cost will be further reduced.

Science and technology is the primary productive force, if Tesla really enters the low-cost car market, with its industry-leading cost control level, I am afraid it will have a big impact on the new energy car companies led by BYD. However, Xiaolei believes that other car companies will never sit still, watching Tesla swallow up its own market share, and the new energy vehicle market will usher in a new round of reshuffle.

Cover image source: Tesla