Tesla is already working on an anti-3 Series

The Silicon Valley electric vehicle maker is finally moving on from the financial potholes of its risky business path. Now that the first owners of the Model S are receiving their keys, and the saloon will be joined next year by the Model X, Elon Musk’s company can think more clearly about its future.

For the brand, the days of odd experiments are over. The head of design at Tesla, Franz von Holzhausen, confirmed in an interview with the British magazine Autocar that the next model is already in development. It will be a saloon below the Model S, designed to go head-to-head with the BMW3 Series, the benchmark of the segment. Its main goal, however, is not to bankrupt customers: “The third model will keep reducing the price as quickly as possible,” von Holzhausen said.

This model, still unnamed, will hover around the $30,000 mark, roughly €24,500 at current exchange rates before incentives. Likewise, Tesla’s design chief said it will have a bolder look than the Model S. “Our cars need to have personality,” the executive admitted. However, its range is not expected to reach the 420 kilometres of the other saloon. It will go on sale in 2015.

The trick that allows this product to launch quickly and without high production costs is that it will share the same architecture as the earlier Tesla models. In fact, it is so flexible that von Holzhausen even suggested the possibility of building an electric pick-up. “That is a market where the torque of an electric motor would be very useful,” he said. Before that, however, the successor to the Roadster must arrive, which will leave the Lotus platform.

Source | Autocar