And there it is.
After years of speculation, the Tesla Model 3 has been unveiled. We’re live in Hawthorne, CA, where the company has just shown the car for the very first time.
Here’s what we know so far:
- Deliveries will begin at the end of next year, and start at $35,000 for the base model.
- Base model will do 0-60 in under 6 seconds, with versions that go “much, much faster” to be announced later.
- Base model will get at least 215 miles per charge, and Elon said that “these are minimum numbers, we hope to exceed them”.
- Base model is rear wheel drive; dual motor versions are planned.
- All Model 3s will have autopilot hardware built-in — it’s not an additional upgrade.
- Like the Model S, it will have front and rear trunks.
- All Model 3s will come with supercharging support standard.
- The roof area is “one continuous pane of glass”.
- It has a 15-inch horizontal (widescreen) monitor in the dash, as opposed to the 17-inch portrait (vertical) monitor in the Model S and Model X.
- Much of the instrument panel — things like the speedometer — have been moved to the corner of that center dash display, as opposed to the Model S, where it’s on a separate screen behind the steering wheel. That behind-wheel screen, at least in this prototype, is gone.
But what good is a snazzy electric vehicle if you can’t easily charge it? Tesla’s more popular supercharger stations can already get super busy during peak times — add in a sudden onslaught of Model 3 owners, and things might get crazy. Fortunately, Elon also committed Tesla to doubling the number of public superchargers from 3,600 to 7,200 by the end of 2017 — right around the time the Model 3 is scheduled to ship.
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