Tesla says that it should be able to deliver its first production Model 3 next month, and also noted that it’ll reveal the Model 3 configurator at that time. The configurator won’t offer a lot of choice, however – Tesla CEO Elon Musk said at a shareholder meeting on Tuesday that it’ll basically let you pick “what color” and “what size wheels” you want.
The plan is to reveal additional configuration options over time, but Musk noted that this simplification came from lessons learned from the launch of the Model X, which offered way too many options initially, increasing manufacturing complexity significantly. The Model 3 configuration has intentionally been kept simple at launch to help with production volume, but reveals of other configuration options will happen on a staged timeline after the company makes sure it gets everything right.
There’s a large backlog that Tesla needs to get through, Musk noted at the meeting, which is a good reason to keep things simple. He said that if you pre-order a Model 3 today, you likely won’t receive a car until “the end of next year,” and he added that the line is only growing, so that delay shouldn’t discourage anyone from putting down cash towards a reservation.