Tesla CEO Elon Musk indicated at a recent company-wide meeting that the company’s proposed $25,000 car will not have steering wheel or pedals
Tesla cars have been known for their auto pilot capabilities, but there always has been the option of manually steering the vehicle. At least yet. The electric mobility giant is now planning to make driving completely driver-less. Reports suggest that Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared plans with his employees to launch a $25,000 electric car, without a steering wheel.
At Tesla’s Battery Day last year, Musk had said that the company will make a $25,000 car, which will be completely autonomous, reported Electek. This competitive price point will be achieved by Tesla’s new battery cell and battery manufacturing effort that could reduce the battery costs by over 50 per cent, it added.
Unoffically monickered ‘Tesla 2’, the car has been likened to a new electric hatchback that the company has been planning at its shanghai Gigafactory in China. Tesla had last year announced plans to establish a R&D centre in China to build a Chinese-style electric car. The company had started taking design submissions for the same and started hiring for the programme shortly afterwards, the report stated.
While the Tesla 2 project remained stuck in the pipeline so far, Musk has reportedly confirmed plans to release such a vehicle during a recent company-wide meeting.
As per reports, the Tesla CEO intends to start production of the deployable self-driving electric car in 2023. He even indicated that the proposed vehicle would not have a steering wheel or pedals.
Tesla has been working on releasing its Full Self-Driving Beta software to a wider fleet in the US by the end of this month, which will be further improved to make it safer and achieve regulatory approval. This will decide whether Tesla can launch a full automatic car or not.
Moreover, the $23,000 price point could help Tesla gain a foothold in markets like India. Tesla recently got approval for four of its models from the Union transport ministry in India, but the names of the models were not revealed. Tesla currently offers Model S, Model 3, Model X and Model Y and plans to launch the second-generation Tesla Roadster and Tesla Cybertruck in future.
