Tesla Announces New Plant for Mysterious, More Affordable EV

Though CEO Elon Musk announced plans for a new factory in Mexico, the company didn't reveal a new car.

Tesla announced on Wednesday that it plans to build a factory in Monterrey, Mexico, to produce a new, more affordable EV. Still, an overall lack of more information regarding the vehicle disappointed investors.

While CEO Elon Musk talked about a $25,000 Tesla vehicle in 2020, he later backed away from the idea. During the presentation, he did not provide further details on the new vehicle's price, design, or performance. As a result, Tesla's share price fell about 5% in extended trading following the announcement.

The New York Times reports that despite investors' disappointment, Musk wanted the event to be about Tesla stockholders. Yet he gave the stage to other execs who presented on technical topics like energy storage and electrode manufacturing. As a result, some, like CEO of OneD Battery Sciences Vincent Pluvinage, felt the presentation was more like an engineering recruiting event than an investor presentation.

Tesla's new factory will follow in the footsteps of other major carmakers that have long manufactured cars and components in Mexico due to low-cost labor and duty-free access to the US market.

Tesla's Shanghai factory currently produces more cars than its other plants. But the EV maker faces steadily growing competition from other electric carmakers, such as BYD, which is making a big push into Europe. Concerned that the company's dominant position in the market is at stake, analysts and investors have expressed concerns that Tesla needs to introduce new vehicles faster.