Revealed on Twitter, naturally.
Yet again, Tesla’s founder and CEO has taken to his favourite microblogging site over the weekend to show off what is the very first production-spec Tesla Model 3. The most “affordable” product from Tesla yet, the Model 3 will also prove to be the company’s most popular, with more than 400,000 people already having placed advanced bookings for the model.
The Model 3 will also be the smallest Tesla on sale, and will take on more mainstream rivals like the BMW 3-Series, Mercedes-Benz C-Class, Audi A4 and Volvo S60. But like all Teslas, the Model 3 flies in the face of convention by only offering electric powertrains while its competition only goes as far as a hybrid petrol-electric system. At the time of writing, the Tesla website has yet to feature any definitive specifications, images, or further details on the Model 3.
Accompanying the photos was very little information, further than what Musk said. The car in the photographs is the “first production Model 3,” and “production unit 1 of Model 3 is now built and going through final checkout.” Last week, we published a report on some of Musk’s other tweets which explained that the Model 3 would begin deliveries by the end of July, and production would increase “exponentially” from a mere 100 in August to as many as 20,000 in December.
While there’s been no official detail, a leaked spec sheet detailed that the Model 3 will (predictably) seat just five, pack just under 400-litres of cargo space, go from 0-60mph (0-97km/h) in just 5.6-seconds, and do a whisker under 350km on a single charged. Prices will start from US$35,000 ($45,950) in the US before incentives and rebates, which will put it smack-bang in contention with the German trio of compact executive saloons.
Separately, Elon Musk was on our shores just this week to seal a deal with the government of South Australia, with Tesla promising to install a 100MW battery facility to help combat blackouts in the region. It will be the worlds’ largest battery facility (outdoing the previous record holder by a good 70MW), and is promised to be installed and running in 100 days, or will be delivered free of charge.
For more information on Tesla, check out our Showroom.
