New Models, New Production

Tesla has announced many changes to come over the next couple of years - and on March 1st, news outlet Reuters got wind of a planned revamp of the Model Y, codenamed “Juniper”.

The news comes from three sources with “knowledge of the plan”, and will reportedly include updates to both the exterior and interior of the vehicle - but aside from that, we really don’t have much to go on.

Tesla hasn’t officially announced Project Juniper yet - and they certainly would have done so at the Investor Day presentation if they had wanted to. This begs the question then, is this just a rumour?

The Investor Day event showcased a lot of upcoming work for Tesla - changes that are intended to affect all of the company’s facilities and production lines. Add to that some announcements about other vehicles getting a redesign, and there’s definitely enough background rumbling to think this report from Reuters has some truth to it. 

There’s a lot of threads here, so bear with us for a moment.

First, let’s look at a similar case: Project Highland. This is the redesign of Tesla’s Model 3 sedan - and like Project Juniper, it’s a project that Tesla has said little-to-nothing about. News of the Model 3 refresh was also broken by Reuters first using their sources close to that project - which lends more credibility to the Model Y news.

But the important things to note are the choice of words for Project Highland. When news broke, all we knew was that the Model 3 was getting tweaked with efficiency in mind - Tesla wanted to reduce the number of components and the complexity of the interior, while updating things like the infotainment display.

That wasn’t too surprising at the time - after all the Model 3 was launched in 2017 - and while it had been steadily updated with newer tech since then - basic methods of assembling it stayed the same.

Shortly after that - on January 15th - Tesla’s Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen appeared on the Ride the Lightning podcast, and discussed a wide range of design topics. He gave a nod to the team’s work on the Model 3, the Roadster, and the Model S - as well as the Cybertruck of course.

But while he was very tightlipped about anything too specific, Franz did paint a picture of the overall philosophy of design that Tesla was moving towards - and here we got the same picture as we did from the Project Highland leaks - Tesla was moving towards a more efficient model, with a reduction in parts complexity across the board.

Then came Investor Day, and brought all of these things together.

The Tesla event held on March 1st showed off many aspects of upcoming Tesla plans - including a new facility in Neuvo Leon, Mexico. But again, an overarching theme to the discussions at this event was that Tesla was going to be working on new layouts and production procedures to lower the amount of parts used overall - while designing an entire new platform for their vehicles - new and old - to use. Franz was the speaker during this portion of the event, so we can tell why he had to be so tight-lipped in earlier interviews.

This is where we can bring our focus back to a potential refresh for the Model Y.

Because the discussion about production efficiency - and Tesla’s goal to apply new procedures across their facilities - implies that all the vehicles Franze talked about in his Ride the Lightning interview would have to be updated. 

And given that the Model Y is the company’s best-selling vehicle, it would be odd if they didn’t take the opportunity to update the design a little bit to bring it in-line.

It’s more than likely that Tesla had been prepping their design teams with this in mind for some time now - knowing that new tech and refined production techniques would be leading to a great opportunity to cut down on waste - and thus the cost - of making their vehicles.

So then, why the secrecy? Announcements about redesigns could be used to drum up some interest ahead of a new release. But there’s a couple of reasons for a company to hold back.

The first is that maybe they’re not very far along in the design process yet. Showing off a new design is a great way to generate some hype, but if it’s going to take a few years for the design to even finalise, then maybe it’s best to wait until there’s something more solid to show off. 

We only need to glance at the Cybertruck’s development - and all the public changes made to it over time - to see that lesson.

And while that’s a likely reason Tesla hasn’t announced this project themselves yet - the bigger reason is likely that same connectivity between projects we mentioned earlier. If Project Juniper is legitimate, then it’s happening at the same time as Project Highland, and work on the new Tesla vehicle platform, design work on the Roadster, and the Model S - and of course the new factory in Mexico.

This facility could easily be the centrepiece of the company’s upcoming changes - a convenient place to test new production line layouts, and construct new parts and vehicles. And even if that’s not what’s in store for GigaMexico, the announced changes to Tesla production lines and logistics are still being worked through. It would make sense that Tesla would want to keep a lid on the specifics of a Model Y refresh if it would shed too much light on that project.

But, as with Project Highland, it likely won’t be long before we get a couple of peeks at some wrapped up prototypes of the new Model Y - so keep those eyes peeled.