In an early morning interview, Elon Musk revealed that Tesla is planning a new model to be designed in Berlin. The Tesla CEO went on to say that it will probably be a small electric hatchback.
Following its announcement of its plans for Gigafactory Berlin, it was announced that in addition to the new Gigafactory, Tesla would also have a design center in Germany. A design center that would focus on new Tesla models with the local designers.
Today, in an early morning interview, Musk mentioned the upcoming Tesla vehicle emphasizing the importance of attracting new talent from Europe: “I think there’s a lot of talent, talented designers and engineers, in Europe. And a lot of the best people, they want to work somewhere where they are doing original design work. They don’t want to just be doing the European version of something that was designed in California. So, I think it’s important in order to attract the best talent to do original design.”
Musk continued explaining which segment Tesla plans to enter with the locally designed model after having trouble parking a Model X in Berlin: “In Europe, I think it would make sense to do I guess a compact car – perhaps a hatchback or something like that. Something that answers ‘what do most people want?’ in a given region. In the US, cars tend to be bigger for personal taste reasons and in Europe, it tends to be smaller. If you try to park in dense urban environments, having a car that fits in tight parking spaces is important.”
No timeline was giving on the design or build of the new Tesla vehicle in Germany but we most likely won’t see anything for a few years. First thing first, Tesla has to get the European Model Y into production at Gigafactory Berlin, and rolling off the assembly lines.
Check out the CEO’s full interview in the video below: