Tesla’s Model 3 is currently throwing a monkey wrench into the plans of legacy automakers. More and more customers are finding it harder to buy cars like the BMW 3 Series, Mercedes-Benz C-Class and Audi A4 when they can get an all-electric Tesla, with 250-plus miles of range, for the same money. So there’s no question that Tesla has shaken up the market. However, it looks like the Silicon Valley-based brand could shake up the market even further with a much cheaper car.

According to this recent tweet from Tesla Facts, the brand is currently working on building a $25,000 model, which will be manufactured in Shanghai. This report claims that the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory submitted documents to the Chinese government, claiming to be starting production in 2022.

There are no specs on this $25,000 Tesla but it’s said that it will be based on the same chassis as the Model 3 and it will use Tesla’s new 4860 batteries. The only problem is that Tesla currently does not have a means to mass produce said batteries, so a 2022 release date seems unlikely, according to Elektrek. “they need to significantly ramp up 4680 battery cell production to build the vehicle, and the new structural battery pack design could be hard to bring to production considering it’s a brand-new way to build cars.”

While there are no specs, the documents sent to the Chinese government hint that it could be sold for the equivalent of around $25,000 in China (between RMB 160,000 and RMB 200,000) and could have about 200 miles of range. That would likely make it the shortest-range Tesla on sale but also the cheapest by a long way.

We wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t mention that Tesla has a horrid track record of actually producing anything on time. So precedent tells us that this $25,000 Tesla won’t debut until at least 2024. We also won’t even go any further into the fact that Musk claimed such a car would be fully autonomous because that’s laughable.

Still, if Tesla can make a 200-mile electric sedan that costs $25,000, even if it does take a couple more years to develop, it will be a huge monkey wrench into the compact car segment. Why would any customer buy an entry-level Camry when they can get an all-electric Tesla for the same money? So long as Tesla can actually sell entry-level models, because we know how that went with the Model 3…

[Source: Car Scoops]