Does a $25,000 Tesla Remain a Possibility?

• Tesla's $25,000 EV project has been shelved, Reuters has reported, drawing a denial from Tesla CEO Elon Musk and renewed interest from Wall Street.

• The EV maker is likely to face strong competition from numerous, more affordable EVs from Chinese automakers if it were to develop a vehicle with a $25,000 starting price.

• Musk has said the company will show a "robotaxi" by the end of 2024, but just what it could be is difficult to predict, given the EV maker's past promises of self-driving vehicles.

Tesla's on-again, off-again $25,000 car project, which once went as far as an official sketch, is believed to be on the back burner if not abandoned outright. Reuters reported a couple of weeks ago that the project has been canceled.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk quickly denied rumors of the project's demise, and even doubled down with promises of a robotaxi by later this year, surprising plenty of investors and industry observers.

But now, in 2024, the concept of a $25,000 Tesla is not as innovative as it seemed in the past decade, back when Tesla actually had a narrow window to attempt such a vehicle. Regardless of the project's actual status, it is now apparent to industry watchers that the Tesla Model 2, as it has been known at times, is not exactly imminent.

And perhaps we're not likely to see something like it debut in the next two years, given Tesla's development cycles and the current focus on the Cybertruck, Roadster, and Optimus robot.

But has the business case for such a model already faded in several key markets, despite the relative dearth of economy EVs in North America?

As usual with such moonshots, the project began in one technological and economic climate, and approached fruition in a vastly different one. Or in this case, approached the back burner.

In the span of time between news of the project first emerging and the present day, we have seen a serious wave of inexpensive EVs appear on the market in China, and start making their way to Europe and South America.