Elon Musk ended Tesla's big battery event Tuesday evening with some big promises about the pricing of Tesla's future cars and the announcement of a new ultra-fast version of today's Model S.

After reviewing improvements in Tesla's own battery designs and manufacturing advancements that could result in huge reductions in battery costs, Musk promised a $25,000 Tesla electric car that would be available in about three years.

That would be much cheaper than any car Tesla has made so far. Musk has a history of sometimes under-delivering on promises, or even not delivering at all. Years ago, Tesla promised a $35,000 electric car, the Tesla Model 3, but even then the Model 3 was only available at that price for a short time.

Musk also promised on Tuesday that the $25,000 car would be capable of driving fully autonomously, a difficult feat because the sensors and other equipment needed for even partly autonomous driving are expensive. And even as he touted the company's ambitious future plans, he admitted that the company's fully-autonomous driving software experienced unforeseen challenges, prompting a "fundamental rewrite" of the "entire software stack," though he did not detail when that rewrite occurred.

In years past, Musk had gone so far as to predict that Teslas equipped with the company's "Full Self Driving" hardware would be capable of a "coast-to-coast" autonomous trip by the end of 2017. His self-imposed deadlines have repeatedly been pushed back, however.


struggled with manufacturing cars at high volume and with good quality. The company scored very poorly in the most recent J.D. Power Initial Quality survey, and the company's initial struggle to assemble its entry-level Model 3 eventually led to cars being assembled in a tent outside the company's Fremont, California factory.
Musk also outlined a new engineering structure for future Tesla cars in which the front and rear framework of the car would each be made of a single cast piece of aluminum alloy. These would be joined to the battery pack which would, itself, actually form a major part of the car's structure.
"Its the way all electric cars in the future will ultimately be made," Musk predicted.