Former Tesla CEO Martin Eberhard slammed Elon Musk’s decision to delay the company’s low-cost car program. Speaking at the inaugural HSBC Global Investment Summit, Martin Eberhard asserted that Tesla must rethink the decision because low-cost EVs have a better market than the company’s gigantic trucks. He said, “I read recently that Tesla has decided not to pursue their Model 2, their low-end car because they don’t think they can compete with the low-end Chinese cars. I think that’s a shame, they might want to rethink that. It seems like a better market than that gigantic truck they make.”
The remarks come after news agency Reuters reported that Tesla called off its plans to manufacture a less-expensive vehicle. The report was denied by Elon Musk but subsequent reports claimed that Tesla is shifting its focus on introducing a robotaxi to the market.
Martin Eberhard also expressed excitement about the entry of different players and said that Tesla company “needs to be focused on cost instead of focusing on technology for the sake of technology.”
“It’s important to understand that the automotive space is not like Silicon Valley in the sense that this is not a space in which there is a winner-takes-all technology. We can have a dozen different car companies around the world making a dozen different types of cars, meeting different positions in the market and all succeeding,” he said.
