Tesla Model 3 orders hit 325,000 08 | 04 | 2016
TESLA HAS LEFT itself with a huge headache following the unveiling of its all-electric mass market Model 3: it now has 325,000 orders. That corresponds to about $14 billion (nearly £9.94bn) in implied future sales.
And the dramatic surge in orders has forced Telsa boss Elon Musk to rethink production capacity. The first Model 3 deliveries are scheduled for the end of 2017.
Within 72 hours of the car being launched by Musk in California, 276,000 orders had been placed; 117,000 of those had been placed before the car even been unveiled. The company would not disclose how many UK orders had been taken.
In light of that success, Musk has tweeted that the company was “definitely going to need to rethink production planning”.
The third all-electric model to come from Tesla — the Model S, a luxury saloon, was launched in 2012, while the Model X, an SUV/people carrier crossover, was launched last year — the Model 3 is the affordable car Musk says he set out to build from the very beginning.
Although exact specifications have not yet been confirmed, the car is claimed to be capable of accelerating from 0-60mph in less than six seconds in its most basic form and can eke out more than 250 miles from one charge.
Capable of housing five adults, the Model 3 also has two boot compartments – one at the front and one at the back.
All Model 3s will come as standard with Tesla’s latest autopilot features and use a tablet-style dash-mounted infotainment system much like that of the Model S.
All Model 3s will come with free access to Tesla’s network of free Superchargers as standard. Currently there are 3600 Superchargers worldwide, but Tesla wants to double this number by the end of 2017, while exceeding 7000 end-of-destination chargers by the same date.
There will also be more than 441 Tesla servicing stations across the globe by the end of 2017.
It's projected that the first Model 3 cars will be delivered in late 2017, with cars starting at $35,000: that equates to around £25,000. That price though is likely to increase once external and UK import costs are added.
Tesla has yet to make a profit – something Musk insists will change in 2016, despite continuing huge investment into R&D. In 2015 it posted a net loss of $889 million (£620m).
Related: Tesla reveals Model X
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Jim McGill