Tesla is abandoning plans for a budget EV it was once thought to make around $25,000, at least according to Reuters, even though that was one of the key products the company had envisioned to help fire up a broader growth.

Instead, the company will concentrate all its efforts on a planned robotaxi built onto the same platform which the low-cost vehicle was to be based on.

In a post on his social media platform, X, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk claimed, without providing evidence, that Reuters is "lying" and did not deny any specific facts. He also responded with an eyes emoji to another post which effectively paraphrased the Reuters report.

Apparently, Tesla has been preparing both cars for years; yet, Musk still cannot seem to make a final decision about which one to launch-first: more traditional or one without the steering wheel or pedals, yet still with a fully autonomous car in his future.

It was in 2020 that Musk first teased the concept of a truly low-cost Tesla. But by early 2022, he said Tesla stopped work on the car because there was too much else to do.

Not for long. The project spun back up, but the company and its CEO were split whether it should be an ordinary car or a futuristic robotaxi.

According to his recent biography on Musk, Walter Isaacson described the manner in which the chief executive pushed back in mid-2022 against engineers' demands to reference a car with a steering wheel and pedals. "This vehicle must be designed as a clean robotaxi," Isaacson quoted Musk as saying. "We're going to take that risk; it's my fault if it fucks up.". But a few weeks later, he alleged, he quoted Musk as saying the robotaxi will "transform everything" and make Tesla a "ten-trillion [dollar] company.".

But even after all that, Isaacson wrote, lead designer Franz von Holzhausen and engineering VP Lars Moravy kept the more traditional car version alive as a "shadow project." In September 2022, Isaacson wrote, Moravy and von Holzhausen made the pitch to Musk that they needed an inexpensive, small car in order to grow at Musk's stated goal of 50% per year. They also fleshed out a plan to make the same platform power both separate models.

Musk still insisted, Isaacson reports, that the $25,000 car was "really not that exciting of a project" — even though it represented the holy grail of his celebrated original "master plan" for Tesla. But by early 2023, Musk finally agreed to go with the plan his lieutenants had put together.

That plan is now in doubt, according to Reuters, which reports that its review of internal documents shows that work on the traditional car program has ceased in favor of the robotaxi path.

Things have changed since Musk agreed to that plan in 2023. Isaacson says that Musk's motivation for trying to spin up a factory in Mexico involved an attempt at making both vehicles there. But Musk quickly pivoted to building the two vehicles in Texas instead. Musk has since told investors that Tesla has backed away from going "full tilt" in developing the Mexico plant in part because of high interest rates. And Tesla has spent the last year lowering the price of its best-selling models in a bid to remain competitive in China, while holding onto its massive lead outside of it.