As the United States and China lock horns over the production and supply of low-cost electric vehicles, former Tesla CEO Martin Eberhard said it’s a shame the Elon Musk-led company plans to delay its low-cost car program. Speaking at the inaugural HSBC Global Investment Summit on Tuesday, Martin Eberhard asked Tesla to rethink the decision because low-cost EVs have a better market than its giant trucks.
“I read recently that Tesla decided not to pursue their Model 2, their low-end car because they don’t think they can compete with the low-end Chinese cars,” Eberhard said in an interview with Bloomberg TV at the summit. “I think that’s a shame, they might want to rethink that. It seems like a better market than that giant truck they’re making,” added the former CEO.
Martin Eberhard’s remarks came after a Reuters report claimed that Tesla had canceled its plans to produce a less expensive vehicle. The report has been denied by current CEO Elon Musk, but the market is buzzing with claims that Tesla is shifting its focus to introducing robotics to the market.
Elon Musk has always sounded optimistic about Tesla’s continued innovations and hinted at the possibility of a $25,000 electric vehicle (EV) during an event in September 2020. The Tesla CEO said that the advances could enable EV production at such a price point within. about three years.
Increasing focus on cost
Speaking about the electric vehicle sector, Martin Eberhard expressed excitement about the entry of different players and said that the company “needs to focus on cost instead of focusing on technology for technology’s sake.”
“It’s important to understand that the automotive space is not like Silicon Valley in the sense that this is not a winner-take-all technology space. We can have a dozen different car companies around the world making a dozen different types of cars, meeting different positions in the market and all succeeding.”
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Published: 09 Apr 2024, 14:32 IST