Tesla Model 3 updates: 276K reservations through Saturday; a few tech details
04 April 2016
During an impromptu Twitter AMA (Ask Me Anything) session over the weekend, Elon Musk, Tesla’s Chairman, CEO, chief evangelist and one-man marketing dynamo tweeted that Model 3 reservations were up to 276,000 by the end of Saturday. Musk said he would post another update on Wednesday.
Musk also said that Tesla had expected reservations to be ¼ to ½ of what actually occurred; “No one at Tesla thought it would be this high before Part 2 of the unveil.”
Other snippets:
Model 3 is RWD, with dual motor AWD optional; torque is shifted between front and rear motors every ~0.1 s. The reveal cars were AWD, but the production AWD will be a lot faster, according to Musk.
Edge and contour refinement ongoing; Tesla hoping for Cd of 0.21.
There will be an optional tow hitch.
Tesla will begin initial deliveries to owners close to the factory regardless of time of reservation to be able to have rapid turnaround on early issues. However, within a given geography, ordering earlier gives priority.
The Cd of the 2016 Prius is 0.24. So only 0.21 for an infinitely better looking car is fantastic. I also bet the Model 3 will have significantly higher miles per kwh than GM’s Bolt. I used to think the Model 3 will have a 60kwh battery in the base version but I now think it could be 55 kwh and still do min 215 epa tested miles for range. I think Tesla will get at least 500,000 preorders after the final reveal and production launch of Model 3. They could get over a million as this car is much better even in the base version than BMW’s 3 series also starting at 35k USD. With over 500,000 million preorders at launch or over 20 billion USD in average preorder value you can bet that Tesla will be in a good position to issue more equity so that they can start constructing another 50Gwh battery factory and another 500k vehicle factory by early 2018. I hope Europe will get it. Maybe Germany but could also be a former east country like Poland or Czech Republic. For Tesla to keep growing at 50% they must develop that self-driving taxi and launch this service before everybody else. However, Musk is well aware of that I am sure.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 04 April 2016 at 09:30 AM
"Optional tow hitch" meaning hitch receiver for the car to tow things, or tow bar so the car can be towed on its wheels? I hate ambiguous statements like this.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 04 April 2016 at 07:29 PM