Tesla’s hatchback
Official sketch gives us glimpse of upcoming hatch
TESLA has dropped an official hint on how a baby hatchback model could look – just as the company confirmed plans to start engineering cars in China.
An unattributed design sketch was issued as part of a string of official communications by Tesla on China’s WeChat social networking service. Roughly translated, one of the statements accompanying the image said, “In the end, it will be interpreted as an original Chinese Tesla, and go global.”
The single sketch shows a car with clear current Tesla design cues at the front end, but more complex surfacing along the flanks and a swoopier, taller tail end that hints at the vehicle being a baby hatchback.
Such a model would be a potential next move for Tesla, which currently has the Model S and Model 3 saloons, as well as the Model X and Y SUVs, in its line-up.
The official communication came just days after Tesla boss Elon Musk visited China to market the first deliveries of locally manufactured Model 3s. At the ceremony, held one year after Tesla first broke ground on its Chinese Gigafactory, Musk told the audience, “I think something that would be super-cool – and so we’re going to do it, we’re going to try to do it – would be to create a China design and engineering centre to actually design an original car in China for worldwide consumption.”
He went on to say: “I think this will be very exciting. I think China has some of the best art in the world and I think it’s something that would be appreciated on a worldwide basis. I think it should be done, and we’re going to do it.”
Designing, engineering and producing a smaller vehicle than even the Model 3 would make sense for Tesla – because the reduced costs along all of those steps in the process could conceivably help it to deliver a car at the required market price of between £20,000 and £30,000.
Much of Musk’s recent focus has been on the Tesla Cybertruck, but this is not the first time the company has hinted at a smaller model. In June 2018, Musk responded to a question he received at a shareholders’ conference about compact (VW Golf-sized) cars by saying, “I think we’ll do a compact car in less than five years.”
“It would be super-cool to design an original car in China for consumption around the world”
ELON MUSK Tesla CEO
“Designing, engineering and producing a smaller car than the Model 3 would make sense”