Tesla CEO Elon Musk is an executive with an obvious penchant for turning heads with exciting or wild forecasts. The latest stems from a recent meeting at Tesla, in which Musk told employees that he wanted the company to release a $25,000 electric car in 2023.
That’s an incredibly attractive price point. Tesla’s Model 3, Model Y, and Model 3 start at $89,990, $53,990, and $39,990, respectively.
According to early sketches released by Tesla last year, the new $25,000 electric car might take the form of a small electric hatchback. The car is also expected to be called the Model 2.
What’s really interesting is that the Model 2 may not even come with a steering wheel, or pedals. This is thanks to the advances that Tesla has made with artificial intelligence and self-driving technologies.
“Do we want to have this car come with a steering wheel and pedals?” Musk reportedly asked his employees, implying that full autonomy will be viable in just a few years. Tesla has been floating the idea of a vehicle without a steering wheel and pedals since 2019.
Tesla is currently trying to release its Full Self-Driving Beta software to its wider fleet in the US by the end of the month.
Once the software, which still requires driver attention, is out, Tesla will improve it using data from the fleet and try to make it several times safer than human drivers in order to achieve regulatory approval to use it as a true full self-driving system.
Source: Electrek