The Tesla Model Q is rumoured to launch during the first half of 2025.
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A really small and affordable Tesla (cheaper even than the best-selling Model 3) has been the great will of the automobile industry for years.
The consensus is that such a car would sell like hot cakes in Europe, where smaller cars are preferred over the types of large SUVs and pickup trucks favored in Tesla’s US market.
Previously known as the Model 2, but more recently referred to as the Model Q, a compact Tesla could sit below £30,000, where it would bring top-notch EV tech, including Tesla’s Supercharger network, to the masses.
Now, soon after Tesla boss Elon Musk said a circa-£25,000 Model 2 would be “pointless,” it looks like a small Tesla is back on the cards.
It’s early days for the Model Q as we write this at the end of 2024, but we hope to hear much more about the new Tesla in the coming months. As such, this article will be updated as more news and speculation about the Model Q comes to light.
Perhaps the biggest surprise here is that Tesla reportedly intends to launch the Model Q in the first part of 2025. This is what emerged from an investor meeting held between Tesla and Deutsche Bank.
Attended by Travis Axelrod, Tesla’s head of Investor Relations, the late-2024 meeting was described as the bank’s Autonomous Driving Day, and referred to a new Tesla called Model Q.
According to The Wall Street Journal reporter Becky Peterson, who obtained a copy of a Deutsche Bank report produced after the meeting, the bank said the so-called Model Q “will launch in the first half of 2025”.
This sounds very soon, given how we’re yet to see any Tesla test vehicles in public. But Tesla tends to work on a different launch cycle to the rest of the industry, preferring to reveal cars that appear production-ready and open order books some time – even several years – before the first customer cars actually arrive.
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Get your electric vehicle and charger in one place.
A new car launching in the first half of 2025 could still be a couple of years away from production reality, but the prospect of a new, cheaper and smaller Tesla is an exciting one nonetheless – and one that will no doubt give the rest of the EV industry sleepless nights.
The Deutsche Bank report also touched on the possible value of the new small Tesla. Peterson quoted the bank as saying that the Model Q “will command less than $30,000 with subsidies, or $37,499 if Trump cancels the IRA tax credit. “
That equates to around £24,000, before tax, well below the Tesla Model 3’s £39,990 starting price.
A sticker worth less than $30,000 has also been placed on the Tesla Cybercab, a two-seat autonomous vehicle introduced in October 2024 that will operate as a driverless taxi until 2026. It is unclear at this time if this is what it is. A user who wants to have their own autonomous vehicle would pay, or if that is the price that Cybercab would charge if a taxi company bought a giant fleet of it. More likely, Cybercab and Model Q component percentages, and potentially even their entire chassis and drivetrain, will keep prices low.
As with Tesla, everything we know so far about the Cybercab and Model Q leaves us with more questions than answers.
Another tantalising prospect for a cut-price Tesla is what the monthly payments might look like. It’s often possible to pick up a new, base spec Model 3 for £299 a month (plus a deposit of about £3,500), which suggests a circa-£199 Tesla Model Q might just be possible.
As with many other electric cars, the Q style will most likely have two battery sizes. The latest rumors suggest those ratings will be 53 kWh and 75 kWh, with the larger one having a claimed maximum range of 300 miles.
That’s just the diversity of the base Model 3 at 318 miles, but well below the long-diversity Model 3, which has a stated diversity of around 436 miles, making it one of the most diverse EVs available today.
Another possibility is that the Q model will come with single- or dual-motor configurations, the latter of which has more power. Needless to say, the car will have a very undeniable interior, missing a demonstration of the tools and the driver’s physique. Instead, and like the soon-to-be-updated Model 3 and Model Y, the Model Q is expected to have a giant touchscreen for everything from media and navigation to climate and all vehicle settings.
After years of rumors and hypotheses – as well as several comments from Tesla and Elon Musk himself about a discounted Tesla – the aforementioned Deutsche Bank report is the latest news we have about the Tesla Model Q/Model 2.
There will undoubtedly be more to come from the cheapest, smallest Tesla yet, and we’d be very surprised if a car below the Model 3 never appears. Given how popular cars like the Mini Cooper E are in Europe and the UK – and how popular the new Renault 5 E-tech will undoubtedly be – we believe it would make perfect sense for Tesla to launch a smaller car, even if its size means it doesn’t actually come to the US at all.
For now, we’re waiting for the rumored launch of the Model Q in mid-2025. We’ll be sure to update this article when new data on Tesla’s smallest car is revealed.
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