What looks to be Tesla’s long-rumored “more affordable model” has been spotted testing on a highway, without any camouflage. But before you get too excited, it’s just a Model Y with some cheaper parts – and a price that’s not much different than we’ve seen on other Teslas.
For many years, Tesla had planned to build a much more affordable vehicle, starting around $25k. This vehicle was nicknamed the “Model 2,” and would have offered the most affordable entry point into the EV market, at least in the West.
But that project was abruptly canceled by Tesla CEO Elon Musk as first reported by Reuters and immediately denied by Musk. Reuters was later shown to be correct in its report, as many who follow Tesla might have expected, given Musk’s constant overpromising (and often outright lies).
In its place, Tesla started offering vague promises about “more affordable models,” starting in its Q1 report in April 2024. Tesla later specified that these would enter production in the first half of 2025.
The language Tesla used suggested that the cheaper vehicles would be new models, which means more than one model, and not just based on a current Tesla model. But we reported that this was unlikely to be the case, and that the new models would just be a stripped-down Model Y.
The first-half deadline Tesla set came and went, but on Tesla’s Q2 call, it said that “first builds” were produced in June. On the same call, Musk said that the “new affordable model” is… the Model Y.
We first saw the “more affordable” Model Y out and about in Chinese spy shots, which included exterior videos and even a peek at the interior. However, in those spy shots, the front and rear of the vehicle were covered with camouflage, suggesting that there would be some changes in those areas Tesla didn’t want to leak yet.
Tesla doesn’t seem to mind those leaks anymore (especially after a low-res website leak), as a Model Y was spotted driving on the highway with no camouflage whatsoever, offering a look into what Tesla was hiding underneath those covers. Check out the embedded post here:
The pictures were posted to reddit by Fantastic_Train_7270, and show a Model Y with Florida manufacturer plates.
The nicely clear front end photos show that the car is missing the front light bar that was added with the Juniper refresh, instead reverting to separate headlights – though both are quite narrow, like the headlights on the Juniper.
The rear end is also missing its light bar, instead replaced by a horizontal black line. The line does not have the “T E S L A” badging, as the Juniper refresh has.
The model also has new aerodynamic wheels, which should help add a little range (and may make up for a smaller battery pack, though we don’t have information yet on whether battery size is part of the decontenting associated with the “more affordable” model).
Other than the lack of light bars, the front and rear look quite similar to the Juniper refresh. However, one concerning detail is that the rear trunk lid does not seem to fit snugly into the place it’s supposed to fit, instead encroaching onto the top of the plastic rear fascia.
We don’t know what might have caused this, but we do know that we’ve seen Model Ys with poor color matching on body panels before – but that’s a lot less of a problem than a body panel that seems to be misaligned by the better part of an inch, visible from a longish distance shot on a highway.
Of course, it’s just a prototype, but this is also the reason prototypes have camouflage, so the public can’t see fiddly bits like this ahead of release.
While these photos don’t show us anything of the interior, information from a recent software update gives us some hints as to what has been removed. In addition to removing the glass roof, coat hooks and 8″ rear screen (as could be seen in the Chinese spy shots), the software update suggests that the Model Y will have no ambient LED lights, single-axis seat controls, and simpler air vents.
The fact that this vehicle was spotted without camouflage, alongside the fact that this vehicle has shown up in recent software updates, suggests that release may be imminent. We had expected that it might be released in China first as has been the case with some other Tesla models lately, but the vehicle’s presence on US roads means that it might see a release here soon too.
And if it is releasing soon, it would be at an important time. Tesla just had its first positive sales quarter in some time, but that was primarily due to the expiration of the $7,500 US EV tax credit, which pulled forward demand. That means Teslas are now going to be $7,500 more expensive for US buyers, as of yesterday. So anything Tesla can do to cut prices will be a big deal.
We don’t know for certain how much cheaper the “more affordable” Model Y will be, but a potentially dodgy leak suggested a base price of $40k. If that’s true, that would be a savings of $5k over the current $45k base price, or $2,500 under the current base price of the Model 3, neither of which are as low as the lowest prices we’ve seen Teslas sell for before. Quite a far shout from the actually affordable $25,000 car we were all promised for so long.
But, we’ll have to see when the actual price gets announced, as it seems like there’s a lot of missing content, so it’s certainly possible they’ll manage to cut more than $5k off the price.
Also, that $40k price would still be a $2,500 price increase compared to the deal which was available just two days ago, before tax credit expiry. And Tesla has its own CEO to thank for that price hike, given he unwisely spent $200 million campaigning for the anti-EV forces that are now making his company’s products less affordable.
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