Growth spurt; small is suddenly very big at Tesla

Having recently reinforced Tesla’s plan to build a smaller Cybertruck for export and confirmed an affordable US25,000 small car unofficially dubbed Model 2 is in the works, company boss Elon Musk has now floated the possibility two small cars will appear.

Speculation is emerging Tesla’s new Giga Shanghai plant in China could build an electrified sedan, while the forthcoming Giga Berlin might make a hatchback.

That split works because Chinese customers love small sedans, Europeans prefer five-doors and Americans aren’t big fans of either.

Mind you, all this is the result of the usual forensic examination of Musk’s tweets and could mean a lot less than is being read into it.

In the course of a discussion on Twitter about the Tesla small car, Musk was asked if new models he had previously mentioned being designed in Shanghai and Berlin were the same.

To that he replied: “Both will do original cars”.

Of course, the small car – or cars – will have to squeeze into Tesla’s future product plans alongside the Semi, the Roadster and the Cybertruck.

But it all tallies with Musk’s mind-boggling desire to build 20 million Teslas per year, a target dropped casually during last week’s Battery Day.

The delivery of the $25,000 car in about three years was announced were announced last week at Battery Day, where Musk and Tesla powertrain chief Drew Baglino went through a heap of technologies that will be rolled out over the next few years to dramatically cut the cost and increase the range of electric vehicles.

Speaking of the latter, on the sidelines of Battery Day Musk repeated his previous forecast that a smaller version of the Cybertruck would be developed for overseas markets.

In the USA the Cybertruck will be likely be classified as medium-duty pick-up about the same size and capability as a Ford F-250 Super Duty pick-up.

“We’ll probably make an international version that’s smaller,” he said. “It will still be cooler, it will just be smaller, because you can’t just make a giant truck like that for international markets.”

While the focus might have been on smaller vehicles, it’s apparent the Cybertruck will be launched to a big waiting list if the latest numbers released by Musk are any guide.

He predicted Tesla would have the capacity to build 250,000-300,000 Cybertrucks per year.

It was the first time Musk has offered a volume projection for the vehicle.

The catch is Tesla has already received “well over half a million” US$100 deposits for the Cybertruck and that’s more than a year ahead of the late 2021 product launch date.

Even if a fair percentage of that lot are tyre kickers, demand is going to overwhelm initial supply, remembering the ramp-up to a full range of models may take until 2023.

Production will start with the most expensive tri-motor models before cheaper Cybertrucks roll out later.

We’ve gone through the model plans for the Cybertruck here.

And just to complicate things, the Cybertruck is to be built at a new Gigafactory currently under construction outside Austin Texas.

“There’s probably room for at least unit volume of 250,000 to 300,000 a year, maybe more,” Musk said.

On the actual number of orders, Musk basically admitted Tesla was no longer paying attention.

It’s a lot, basically,” he said. “We stopped counting.”

If Tesla does manage to build and sell 300,000 full-size Cybertrucks in the USA it will still be well shy of the Ford F-Series, which sold 896,000 examples in 2019.