https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-tiny-house
Brittany Chang and Tim Levin
Boxabl Casita Jorge Ramirez
- Rumors that Tesla is building a tiny house that costs $15,000 have been circulating, but they aren't true — at least for now.
- However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk does own a tiny house in Texas from startup Boxabl.
- Proponents of tiny homes say they can help solve America's housing crisis.
While those reports don't have much merit, the little living units have even attracted the attention of Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Musk uses a $50,000 prefab house from startup Boxabl as a guest house in Texas. Take a look inside one of Boxabl's houses.
Boxabl's debut product is the Casita, a $49,500, 375-square-foot, prefab home. In late 2021, Boxabl said it installed a Casita in Boca Chica, Texas — where SpaceX's launch site is — for a "top secret customer."
Boxabl CEO Galiano Tiramani did not confirm that Musk, who runs SpaceX, bought or lived in a Casita in a 2021 interview with Business Insider. But the company has leaned into online rumors that Musk lived in one of its units.
Musk denied living in the tiny house, saying instead that he lives in a different small house in South Texas. But in July 2022, he said he owns a Boxabl and uses it as a guest house. He said he threw a birthday party there last year.
"There's a number of reasons why housing hasn't really worked in the factory yet, so we've gone through it and solved all those problems," he said.
Shipping, however, could still cost $2 to $10 a mile from the company's Las Vegas headquarters. But if the customer is willing to pay more for shipping, the homes can also be sent overseas or by rail.
The 19.5-foot-by-19.5-foot buildings can also be stacked and connected to create larger buildings. But if you're just looking for a bigger prefab home, wait a bit. Tiramani says the company still plans to release larger units.
And instead of the classic "lumber, hammer, and nails" construction method, the Casitas are built using steel, concrete, foam insulation, and laminated paneling. This means the tiny homes are strong enough to withstand hurricane winds, mold-resistant, and flood and snow tolerant.
But Boxabl isn't popular just because of its tiny homes.
The time, cost, and labor-efficient nature of creating homes in factories amid our housing shortage have been pushing more attention onto prefabrication, whether it be the Casita or other factory-built homes, like 3D printed units.
The Casita has attracted more people than just tiny-home enthusiasts and Elon Musk.
"The demand for housing is so incredibly massive, there's shortages everywhere and no one can build fast enough," Tiramani said. "It's great for us to know that so many people are interested in this product.
The wait list stands at around 100,000 people, but Boxabl says those people are interested in at least 1 million Casitas.
And the company doesn't attribute all of this popularity to the Musk rumors. With the help of influencer and social-media marketing, the Las Vegas business already had a wait list of 40,000 people before it started receiving attention from Musk fans in 2021.
But its wait list then jumped to 47,000 people when the SpaceX rumors broke. That's over $1 billion worth of reserved Casitas, according to Boxabl.
"The target audience heard about this beforehand, and then the Musk press brought in general audience interest, maybe someone who didn't care about housing," Tiramani said.
A second factory is up and running now as well, the company said.
Boxabl already has a $10 million government contract for military housing. It has already built the 156 houses ordered by the Department of Defense.
