Elon Musk brags with a production Model 2 and the Mexico Gigafactory that will make it

Tesla shareholders who were waiting on Elon Musk to announce the affordable Model 2 that they also expected to be unveiled during Investor Day were disappointed once more. While Elon didn't launch Tesla's first mass market affordable EV, he did tease that new models are being "built" and "designed" right now, suggesting that the eventual Model 2 might be in its early engineering verification stages right now.

The two new models, he added, will "probably" sell 5 million annually when their production is fully ramped-up, indicating that those must indeed be mass market electric vehicles. Tesla even went as far as teasing an outline of one of its future new cars again, though it didn't show anything that hasn't been tucked in promo videos or presentations before. The outline is pretty generic looking, but the Model 2 was last rumored to look like a smaller Model Y and something resembling such a silhouette was shown on the screen during Elon Musk's part.

During Investor Day, Tesla showed an infographic with two new mystery vehicles that it has in the pipeline. The same infographic was brought on stage again during the 2023 shareholder meeting. It displayed one large model in the Cybertruck's van and pickup class, and a brand new category that had the number 700 million on top of it. The second model is much smaller than the one in the Cybertruck's class and Tesla apparently thinks it will sell almost twice what the Model 3 and Model Y's class will do.

That can only mean this could be Tesla's first cheap electric car that rumor has it will cost about US$22,000 for its base version before subsidies. The design and manufacturing of these two new mass market EVs from Tesla will be "head and shoulders above everyone else," teased Musk.

Pouring more water in that particular rumor mill, Elon Musk confirmed that the new Gigafactory in Mexico will be a big piece of the manufacturing puzzle that will allow Tesla to reach the coveted production number of 20 million vehicles per year. During that claim, a slide with the Giga Mexico teaser said that Tesla's upcoming factory in Nuevo León will be "manufacturing [the] next gen vehicle."

Along with the rumor that the purported Model 2 will actually be a smaller, cheaper version of the Model Y rather than the Model 3, came a claim that the Mexican Gigafactory is scheduled to begin its production as soon as next summer, and ramp up its capacity to 2 million units per year.

Elon Musk did say that the new mass market electric vehicles that Tesla is building will have dedicated launch events. That leaves plenty of time between this summer and the next for the Model 2, Model Z, or whatever Tesla decides to call it, to be announced with actual specs and price details.

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