Tesla Model Q: Release date, price and all you need to know about the small EV

The Tesla Model Q is rumoured to launch during the first half of 2025.

The Model Q could share its platform with the Tesla Cybercab (Tesla)

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A truly small and affordable Tesla – cheaper even than the best-selling Model 3 – has been the automotive industry’s great will-they-won’t-they for years now.

Such a car would, the consensus goes, sell like hot cakes in Europe, where smaller cars are preferred to the sort of oversized SUVs and pick-up trucks preferred in Tesla’s home US market.

Previously known as the Model 2, but more recently referred to as the Model Q, a compact Tesla could sit below £30,000, where it would bring top-notch EV tech, including Tesla’s Supercharger network, to the masses.

Now, soon after Tesla boss Elon Musk said a circa-£25,000 Model 2 would be “pointless,” it looks like a small Tesla is back on the cards.

It’s early days for the Model Q as we write this at the end of 2024, but we hope to hear much more about the new Tesla in the coming months. As such, this article will be updated as more news and speculation about the Model Q comes to light.

Tesla Model Q release date

Perhaps the biggest surprise here is that Tesla reportedly plans to launch the Model Q during the first half of 2025. That is according to an investor meeting held between Tesla and Deutsche Bank.

Attended by Travis Axelrod, Tesla’s head of Investor Relations, the late-2024 meeting was described as the bank’s Autonomous Driving Day, and referred to a new Tesla called Model Q.

According to The Wall Street Journal reporter Becky Peterson, who obtained a copy of a Deutsche Bank report produced after the meeting, the bank said the so-called Model Q “will launch in the first half of 2025”.

This sounds very soon, given how we’re yet to see any Tesla test vehicles in public. But Tesla tends to work on a different launch cycle to the rest of the industry, preferring to reveal cars that appear production-ready and open order books some time – even several years – before the first customer cars actually arrive.

A new car launching in the first half of 2025 could still be a couple of years away from production reality, but the prospect of a new, cheaper and smaller Tesla is an exciting one nonetheless – and one that will no doubt give the rest of the EV industry sleepless nights.

Tesla Model Q price

A potential price for the new, small Tesla was also spoken about in the Deutsche Bank report. Peterson quoted the bank as saying the Model Q “will cost less than $30k with subsidies, or $37,499 if Trump cancels the IRA tax credit.”

That works out at about £24,000, before accounting for tax, well below the £39,990 starting price of the Tesla Model 3.

A sub-$30,000 price tag has also been attached to the Tesla Cybercab, a two-seat autonomous vehicle revealed in October 2024 and said to be capable of operating as a driverless taxi by 2026. It isn’t clear for now if that’s what an individual wanting their own self-driving car would pay, or if that’s how much the Cybercab would cost if a taxi company bought a large fleet of them. It is likely that the Cybercab and Model Q would share components, and potentially even their entire chassis and drivetrain, to keep costs down.

As is often the case with Tesla, everything we know so far about both the Cybercab and the Model Q leaves us with more questions than answers.

Another tantalising prospect for a cut-price Tesla is what the monthly payments might look like. It’s often possible to pick up a new, base spec Model 3 for £299 a month (plus a deposit of about £3,500), which suggests a circa-£199 Tesla Model Q might just be possible.

Tesla Model Q specification

As with many other electric cars, a choice of two battery sizes is likely for the Model Q. The latest rumours suggest those options will be 53 kWh and 75 kWh, and that the larger will have a maximum claimed range of 300 miles.

This is only just behind the range of the entry-level Model 3, at 318 miles, but well short of the long-range Model 3, which has a claimed range of some 436 miles, making it one of the longest-range EVs available today.

Another likelihood is that the Model Q will be offered with one- and two-motor configurations, with the latter having more power. It’s also a given that the car will have a very simple interior, lacking a driver instrument display and physical switchgear. Instead, and just like the Model 3 and soon-to-be-updated Model Y, the Model Q is expected to have a large touchscreen for controlling everything from the media and navigation to the climate control and all vehicle settings.

Tesla Model Q latest rumours

After years of rumour and speculation – plus several comments from Tesla and Elon Musk himself about a cut-price Tesla – the aforementioned Deutsche Bank report is the latest news we have on the Tesla Model Q / Model 2.

There will undoubtedly be more to come from the cheapest, smallest Tesla yet, and we’d be very surprised if a car below the Model 3 never appears. Given how popular cars like the Mini Cooper E are in Europe and the UK – and how popular the new Renault 5 E-tech will undoubtedly be – we believe it would make perfect sense for Tesla to launch a smaller car, even if its size means it doesn’t actually come to the US at all.

For now, we’re eagerly awaiting the supposed mid-2025 launch of the Model Q. We’ll be sure to update this article when fresh information on Tesla’s smallest car comes to light.