Tesla to release a cheaper Model Y refresh if the Juniper facelift sales don't go to plan

Since Tesla announced the 2026 Model Y Juniper refresh, it reportedly notched 200,000 preorders in China during the period when the new car was on a reservations list.

The reservation numbers allocated, however, "appear to be twice as high as the actual order count," according to Troy Teslike, a Tesla analyst.

Thus, the Juniper facelift preorders may have indeed been fewer than the numbers Tesla expected, and when it only sold 30,688 cars there in February, it apparently began making contingency plans to revive sales in its all-important China market.

Cheaper Model Y may keep the Juniper specs

There, Tesla is reportedly readying a lower-priced Model Y that will be offered as the sales of the current Juniper facelift trim don't live up to its expectations. There is now uncharacteristically short wait time for the new Model Y in China, and in the first week after the launch it reportedly only shipped a bit over 6,000 units instead of the close to 10,000 expected.

While that may be due to the production ramp and is not necessarily a sign of flailing demand, Tesla doesn't want to leave anything to chance and is readying a more affordable Model Y trim.

The industry sources share that it won't be a smaller and less capable version of the Model Y, like Tesla's cheapest Model 2 vehicle that is expected to launch later this year. Tesla will apparently keep the battery pack and drivetrain it uses for the Juniper refresh, but will streamline costs from other sections.

This approach is reportedly known as the depopulation or "depop" method and Tesla uses it to "quickly launch products by simplifying configurations while keeping the main functions unchanged."

One example would be the cheaper Model 3 refresh it launched in Mexico that came with cloth seats and without some of the bells and whistles of the original facelift.

The cloth seats in the RWD Model 3 there don't have heating or ventilation, for example, and Tesla removed the rear display, the colored ambient lighting, and even the lid from the cupholders. The depop method also makes do with acoustic glass only on the front windows, and nixed the steering wheel heating.

It is not clear if the purported cheap Model Y will follow the same path of cost cutting, but it is expected to launch in China in the second half of the year to boost sales after the early Juniper adopters have all but disappeared from the market.

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