Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk Makes Surprising Change to the Model Y

Model Y

During Tesla’s (NASDAQ:$TSLA) second quarter earnings call on Wednesday, August 2, the electric vehicle producer’s co-founder and CEO Elon Musk made a rather unexpected announcement about the company’s next electric vehicle, the Model Y.

The car, set to be one of the first electrically powered compact SUVs, is to be released by 2020. On the call, Musk announced that the Model Y will be based off Model 3’s vehicle architecture – a rather significant change from the previous statement Musk made, saying that the Model Y will have a completely different structure from all of Tesla’s vehicles. By using the Model 3’s vehicle platform to build the new model, Tesla should have an easier time in producing the Model Y once it comes out.

“Upon the council of my executive team to reel me back from the cliffs of insanity, the Model Y will, in fact, be using substantial carry over from Model 3 in order to bring it to market faster,” Musk stated.

Many had agreed previously that a different vehicle platform for the Model Y could have meant disaster for the electric vehicle company. This is because a lot of major automobile makers often use a single vehicle architecture as a base when making similar vehicles in order to decrease production costs and increase production efficiency. For example, General Motors’ (NYSE:$GM) Chevys, Buicks, GMCs, and Cadillacs all make use of the same vehicle architecture platform.

Additionally, if one considers Tesla’s somewhat rocky history with production, it was probably a good call by the company to use the Model 3 vehicle platform to build Model Y.

In the call, Musk was firm in giving credit to his executive team for changing the plans for the project. “I have to thank my executive team from stopping me from being a fool. Model Y will have relatively low technical and production risk as a result,” Musk noted.

During after hours trading on Wednesday, August 2, Tesla’s stock has gained about 7.77% as of 7:40 PM EDT.

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About the author: Grace is currently studying at UBC to achieve her BA in Computer Science. She is due to graduate in 2020. As a content creator, Grace has written financial analysis, stock market news, and informational investing articles. She also worked as an editor with her university publication 'UBC Undergraduate Journal of Art History'.