The SUV electric vehicle that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been talking about since 2015 is said to finally begin volume production by the end of 2020. Tesla announced its plans for the Model Y Wednesday in a letter to shareholders, saying it will begin a prototype for the electric SUV this year.

“This year should be a truly exciting one for Tesla,” the company said in the shareholder letter. “Model 3 will become a global product, the profitability of our business should become sustainably positive, our new Gigafactory Shanghai should start producing cars, and we will start tooling for Model Y production.”

During an earnings call, Musk mentioned the Model Y will “most likely be produced at the company’s massive “gigafactory” in Nevada,” as TechCrunch reports. In addition, he stated his predictions regarding Model Y sales, claiming it will be higher than its new Model 3.

The cost of the Model Y production line is reportedly lower than the Model 3 line in Fremont, California since it will be built on the same performance platform and will also share nearly 75 percent of its components with Tesla’s Model 3. By incorporating the same components, the company predicts the production ramp for Model Y should be faster as the automaker doesn’t expect to start from scratch.

1 COMMENT

  1. Musk can’t stop his enthusiastic lying about his slipshod auto company. He never mentiones any of the horrendous things thathve been happening to Tesla lately – like salesof the Model S and Model X getting obliterated in Europe by Jaguar’s I Pace and a car not yet even in production : the Porsche Taycan, which is guaranteed to outsell the Model S next year. Or the fact that the Model Y will arrive very late – late 2020 – when it will have to compete against a dozen or more electrics, several of which are already here and getting very good reviews. And all at a $7500 price disadvantage compliments of the disappearing buyer’s tax credits. Mission Impossible – the Model Y will fail in the U.S., Tesla’s largest market.

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