Tesla is targeting production of its Model Y SUV to begin in November 2019 at its Fremont, California, plant, according to a Reuters report citing two sources “with knowledge of the supply chain”.
The electric carmaker has received bids for supplier contracts for the Model Y and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is already accepting preliminary bids, the report said.
The Model Y is a smaller version of the company’s flagship Model X SUV. The Model Y will reportedly be built on the Model 3 platform.
The report revealed that suppliers have already received a Request for Information (RFI) from Tesla about Model Y parts. One of the sources told Reuters that a November 2019 start date for the Model Y would be considered “aggressive, but possible,” as it is being built on the Model 3 platform.
According to Teslarati, Musk said during Tesla’s Q4 2017 earnings call:
“We are going to make some capital investments towards the end of this year related to Model Y. I don’t want to jump the gun on those, but I think we’ve got a good plan. I’m pretty excited about how we’re designing Model Y. It’s really taking a lot of lessons learned from Model 3 and saying how do we design something to be easy to manufacture instead of how to manufacture or difficult, really.”
In February, Musk told analysts that Tesla is aiming for production capacity of 1 million Model Y vehicles per year. Musk did not provide a time-frame for this goal.