Elon Musk Tweets New Details About Tesla's Model Y Electric SUV (mashable.com)

"For anyone who thought that there was too much Tesla news this weekend, I've got some bad news for you," writes long-time Slashdot reader Rei, sharing new information gleaned from a series of tweets.

"Elon Musk just announced the unveiling of the Model Y SUV on March 14th at Tesla's LA Design Studio." A surprising number of details were revealed, including non-falcon doors, a similar appearance to the Model 3, and pricing about 10% more than a Model 3, with slightly lower range, due to the increased mass and cross section.

The unveiling will not include the Tesla pickup truck; that will be later this year. Model Y is to share 75% of its hardware with Model 3 to simplify the development process, with volume production targeted for late 2020, and initial production in early 2020. Musk also stated: "First public Tesla V3.0 Supercharger Station goes live Wed 8pm" (V3 is the much awaited new generation of higher power, cheaper to operate Superchargers).
"Personally, I'm most excited by the Tesla Truck," Musk posted on Twitter. "Maybe it will be too futuristic for most people, but I love it."

Comments

Re: Pumper gotta pump

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet they just paid a 900+ billion dollar convertible bond and have Shanghai going online. Oh, and they also went profitable last quarter. People naysaying every day, but Tesla is doing it.

Re: I hope its better than the Model X.

[Kotoku]

You can add a roof rack and tow kit. Videos are on YouTube of Model X pulling an aircraft.

Re:Pickup Truck?

[Anonymous Coward]

An electric 4WD should use wheel motors and completely avoid the whole differential and drive shaft clearance issues.

Re:I hope its better than the Model X.

[Anonymous Coward]

Model X tow package here.

Re:I hope its better than the Model X.

[ShanghaiBill]

Why would anyone want to take their SUV off road? It might get scratched.

Not unexpected...

[cliffjumper222]

S 3 X Y

Re:Not unexpected...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

No the semi is model M (seMi). The pickup truck is model U(tility). The new roadster is S (roadSter) again. The van will be K (Kids). Finally the lineup will spell S3XY MUSK

Re: Help me, Rei, you are my only hope!

[Rei]

Yes, companies with billions of dollars of cash on hand and expanding much faster than even Amazon did into a market that most people consider to be the future of transportation and energy storage should totally declare bankruptcy. That makes a ton of sense; I don't know why we didn't think of it before!

Re: I hope its better than the Model X.

[Rei]

Where in the warranty does it say that? Under "Warranty limitations", "Towing the vehicle" is an exclusion, but not "Towing with the vehicle".

Re: Pumper gotta pump

[michelcolman]

Yep, they're shipping 3-4000 cars to Europe per week right now, and those are all still the high margin long range version.

US demand was fully expected to go down to almost zero temporarily when the federal tax credit was cut in half. Many people ordered earlier in december rather than wait for january or february. 6000 cars in february is actually a lot better than I would have expected.

Meanwhile, I think it's clear that they delayed the short range model not because they couldn't make it, but simply because there was still so much demand for the more expensive version and they would be fools to throw that money away. Looks like that demand was stronger than they had expected, so they kept pushing the cheaper version back until finally, just now, they are reaching the point where demand for the expensive version is less than max production rate.

Re:I hope its better than the Model X.

[Rei]

Welcome to Slashdot, where mountainous, arctic Norway is treated as a tropical paradise, if that's what you need to make an argument against Tesla.