A $35,000 Model 3 would eventually become available but only for a few months and for special order (plus they did some weird interior strippage in an attempt to make it cheaper).
The Semi has had a slow launch and other vehicles promised in 2016, including a bus, second-generation Roadster, and lower-cost Tesla were yet to materialize by early 2023.
By September 2022, Elon Musk had reluctantly accepted the recommendation of Tesla executives Franz von Holzhausen and Lars Moravy that the next-generation vehicle platform could support both a small, inexpensive, mass-market car—as well as a self-driving "Robotaxi" that would be built with no steering wheel at all—and that both could be manufactured on the same next-generation vehicle assembly line.
[12] By October 2022, the company stated that the Tesla engineering team had turned its focus to it and that it would be half the price of the Model 3/Y platform.
[16] The design for the platform was stated to require 75% less silicon carbide than existing Tesla vehicles, would support any battery chemistry, and that various manufacturing synergies would enable a halving of the factory footprint.
[20] During the next quarterly earnings call, the company announced that production could begin as soon as late 2024, using processes developed for NV9X, on a platform derived from existing vehicles.
[28] Reuters published an article on April 5, 2024, claiming that per internal sources, Tesla has canceled plans to market a low-cost car to consumers and instead intends to use the chassis as the basis for a robotaxi.
[29] According to an analyst for Axios, "Cheap EVs are hard for American companies to make, [...] but they're simply table stakes these days.
"[30] Elon Musk posted to social media on April 6, 2024, stating that a robotaxi would be unveiled on August 8 of that year.
[31] As per Max Chafkin in a Bloomberg Businessweek article, it is presumed that Elon Musk probably has traded the affordable Tesla for a robotaxi.