Tesla has officially delivered the first made-in-Texas Model Y vehicles, but it is still being vague about the new version of the electric SUV, especially regarding the specs and pricing.
The Cyber Rodeo event yesterday marked the opening of Gigafactory Texas, which was the real star of the show.
During a presentation at the event, CEO Elon Musk spent most of his time talking about the factory, which he believes will become “the highest-volume car factory in America” with the eventual production of over 1 million vehicles per year.
He said that Model Y will account for over 500,000 of those vehicles, and at the end of the event, he said that Tesla is officially delivering the first made-in-Texas Model Y vehicles that night – rolling some of them on stage as he announced it.
The CEO reiterated that those new Model Ys are “revolutionary” for being built with only three major pieces: a front and back giant single piece casting joined together by a structural battery pack enabled by Tesla’s new 4680 battery cell.
These important changes are expected to affect the specs of the electric SUV.
Musk noted the advantages of this new version of Model Y, like the simplicity of the manufacturing process, the weight reduction, which also translates into efficiency improvements, and the improved safety.
However, the CEO didn’t release any specific specs or pricing about the vehicle.
That’s strange, to say the least, about a new vehicle that you claim to now be delivering to customers.
At the event, Electrek was able to confirm that the made-in-Texas Model Y vehicles on site were listed as Model Y Standard AWD, but Tesla is still not listing such a version of the vehicle on its online configurator:
The new Model Y Standard AWD is likely the new AWD 279-mile range Model Y that has recently been revealed through an EPA filing, but what is hard to understand is that it looks like Tesla delivered those without ever listing them on its website with the new specs or pricing.
We assume that Tesla is going to have to sell this new version at a lower price than the $63,000 Model Y Long Range AWD, which has a range of 330 miles, but nothing has been announced yet despite the first deliveries.
Electrek’s Take
That’s certainly a strange situation. One explanation would be that Tesla only delivered the first vehicles to employees with whom it made specific deals about the cars.
However, it is still concerning that Tesla claims to have started production and deliveries of the new Model Y, and it’s not even listing the new version of its website for people to buy instead of the existing ones.
Considering that Tesla has a long backlog of Model Y orders, maybe the automaker is planning to reach out to some of them to offer them to upgrade (or technically downgrade range-wise and hopefully price-wise) to the made-in-Texas Model Y before taking new orders.
That would actually make sense, but we haven’t heard anything about that happening.
What do you think is happening with this new Model Y Standard AWD? Let us know in the comments section below.
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