Drivers will be able to get behind the wheel of Tesla’s new Model 3 at the end of the month, the company’s chief executive announced early Monday in a series of tweets. The long-awaited electric car that’s priced for the mass market is expected to roll off the factory floor on Friday, Elon Musk said.
Musk said the $35,000 Model 3 passed regulatory requirements two weeks ahead of schedule and that the first 30 owners will receive their cars during a handover party on July 28, Musk said, paving the way for an ambitious production timeline. Musk had said earlier this year that the Model 3 would arrive by July. The company appears to be making good on its stated trajectory, even as Tesla has been beset by production delays and has overshot schedules in the past.
Handover party for first 30 customer Model 3's on the 28th! Production grows exponentially, so Aug should be 100 cars and Sept above 1500.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 3, 2017
After the initial rollout, Tesla is slated to produce more than 1,500 Model 3 cars in September, and by the year’s end, Musk expects the company to produce 20,000 units every month. Demand is so high for the vehicle, Musk has said, that customers who put down $1,000 to reserve one now won’t see their cars until late next year. Tesla hasn’t released order numbers since May 2016, when it said that 373,000 Model 3 reservations had been placed.
By 2018, the automaker is aiming to have produced a half-million cars, an enormous leap over last year, when the company produced about 84,000 units.
While some experts say that Tesla has learned from the production issues it faced with its SUV, the Model X, others have questioned the company’s ability to sustain demand and to squeeze profits from its cutting-edge autos. “To produce niche cars like the Model X and the Model S is one thing, but to roll out a mass-market mainstream car is way more challenging from a production standpoint,” said Jessica Caldwell, the director of industry analysis with the auto-research website Edmunds.com.
Tesla declined to comment beyond Musk’s tweets.
Tesla says the five-seater will boast a range of 215 miles per charge. Early Model 3 customers can choose the car’s color and wheel size. Later customizations include two motor options: one optimized for highway driving and the other for stop-and-go traffic, Musk said during the annual shareholders meeting last month.
But it’s unclear how these configurations will mark up the entry-level $35,000 price tag. Additional costs for Model 3 add-ons could undercut the car’s selling point as an affordable vehicle for a wide range of customers, Caldwell said. Buyers will be eligible for a full $7,500 federal tax credit up until Tesla reaches its 200,000th electric vehicle sold in the United States.
Investor anticipation and optimism around the Model 3 have lifted Tesla’s stock price to record highs. Tesla shares were up after Musk’s tweets on Monday but then dropped, closing down 2.5 percent to $352.62 a share. Still, the company’s stock is up more than 64 percent this year, driving Tesla’s value, now at nearly $60 billion, above some of the biggest automotive players in Detroit. General Motors is valued at $54 billion, and Ford is worth $46 billion.
Pulling off a successful launch of the Model 3, and sustaining high-volume production is crucial to Tesla’s broader goal of widespread adoption of electric cars, Caldwell said. “In order to promote electric vehicles, it has to go to the mainstream, and right now they are only selling expensive cars to a very limited, wealthy audience.”
In another sign of Tesla’s ambition, the company plans to unveil a working prototype of its semi-truck model at an event in September. Musk also hinted that the event would showcase a surprise announcement. Teasing the audience at the June shareholder meeting, Musk said: “I’d really recommend showing up for the semi-truck unveiling. Maybe there’s a little more than we are saying here.”