Redwood Project: the famous Tesla Model 2 scheduled for mid-2025?
According to a report from the American agency Reuters a few days ago, Tesla is reportedly surveying its suppliers to find the parts that will allow it to build a new electric car model from the second half of 2025, with a retail price of around $25,000. This is roughly a model that rumors call the Model 2, but which Tesla internally calls the Redwood project.
It is not clear what form this new model would take, but according to anonymous sources cited by Reuters, it would be a smaller family-sized vehicle, commonly known as a “crossover” in English, but slightly smaller than the Model Y. It is worth noting that the Model Y is the best-selling electric vehicle in the world (if not the best-selling vehicle overall).
While the Model Y is very popular, Tesla is no longer the most popular electric car brand in the world. It has just been surpassed by BYD, a Chinese brand that is 60% owned by American interests, including the main one being the investment firm Berkshire Hathaway, owned by billionaire businessman Warren Buffett.
BYD is positioning itself to enter the American market with its electric vehicles that are more affordable than Tesla’s, which obviously caught Elon Musk’s attention.
Musk has been promising a $25,000 electric vehicle since 2020, but it has taken time to materialize for various reasons. Tesla is not the only American company struggling to lower the selling price of its electric vehicles. Even GM, which promised an Equinox EV priced at $30,000 CAD starting last year, has not yet fully delivered on that promise.
The good news in all of this is that there is a sudden interest from manufacturers in electric vehicles whose price will not be higher than that of comparable gasoline vehicles.