Elon Musk is thinking about changing Tesla’s ‘S3XY’ naming convention after the Model Y

Elon Musk has been on a quest to bring ‘S3XY’ back with Tesla’s vehicle naming convention. First with the Model S, ‘S’ for sedan, and Model X, ‘X’ for the look of the Falcon Wing doors, and now with the upcoming Model 3 and Y.

But now it looks like Telsa might drop the ‘Model’ plus ‘letter’ naming scheme after the Model Y completes the ‘S3XY’ vehicle lineup, according to Elon Musk.

Tesla originally wanted the Model 3 to be called the Model E, which would have really made the lineup spell out ‘SEXY’, but Ford shut down the plan.

Since 2013, Tesla officials had been referring to the company’s upcoming third generation vehicle as the “Model E”, which would have joined the models S and X in Tesla’s lineup to make “S-E-X” with the Model Y to follow later – the vehicle is confirmed, but has yet to be unveiled or assigned an official public timeframe.

The name stuck for a while, but during the shareholders meeting in July 2014, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that the company had to drop its “Model E” trademark after Ford threatened to sue over having a similar naming scheme. At the time, Musk said that “Ford tried to kill sex.”

Since then, Tesla has been referring to the upcoming third generation vehicle as the “Model 3”, but Tesla is clearly trying to keep “SEX” alive by using three horizontal lines to represent the ‘3’.

Now while discussing a possible name for its upcoming minibus announced with the ‘Master Plan Part Deux’, someone suggested ‘Model B’, which is in line with Tesla’s current naming convention, but Musk said that he thinks Tesla should move away from that after the Model Y:

I think we should be inconsistent in our naming conventions after Model Y

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2016

But then Musk agreed that ‘B S3SXY’ would also make for an interesting vehicle lineup.

If Tesla indeed moves away from the ‘Model’ + ‘letter’ after the Model Y, it would mean that both the pickup truck and the minibus could end up with names outside of the current naming convention.

Any ideas?

Featured Image: A picture my t-shirt from elonmusknews.org