Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Friday that Model 3 had more than half a million advance bookings while delivering the first 30 to employee buyers, setting the stage for the company’s largest test of strategy for Become a massive electric market profitable Automobile manufacturer.
Outside the Tesla factory in Fremont, Calif., Musk showed the $ 35,000 base vehicle with a 220 mile range with a charge marking an exit from the company’s previous luxury electric cars.
Musk rose to the stage of driving a red model 3, and said Tesla has produced 50 of the vehicles so far, including 20 for testing purposes.
Hours before the event, Musk acknowledged that it would be “quite a challenge” to build the car during the first few days of production.
“We’re going to go through at least six months of manufacturing hell,” Musk told reporters.
The more than half a million bookings are more than approximately 373,000 revealed in April 2016. Customers pay $ 1,000 refundable deposits for the car, which is eligible for tax credits.
Any new buyer would probably not receive his car until the end of 2018, Musk said.
A longer version of the car is priced at $ 44,000 and will drive 310 miles (500 km) on a single charge. The cars feature an aerodynamic control panel devoid of buttons or knobs, with a 15-inch touchstream screen to the driver’s right.
Tesla faces major hurdles that live up to Model 3 hype. The 500,000 vehicles Tesla promises to produce next year are almost six times their production in 2016.
If Tesla produced and sold 500,000 cars per year, the company would probably sell more than BMW, Mercedes or Lexus brands in the United States.
Delays in production and quality problems affected the launches of the Tesla Model S and Tesla X models and the company blamed production problems for a deficit during the second quarter of this year.
Musk has said that a simpler design of the Model 3 will greatly reduce the potential problems of the assembly line. Tesla has burned more than $ 2 billion in cash so far this year before launch.
A problematic launch of Model 3 could increase risks for the company, while a constant delivery of Models 3 could generate a cash flow that would allow Tesla to avoid going back to the capital market to finance its operations.
Tesla’s share price has risen 54 percent since January in anticipation of the Model 3 launch, and Tesla’s costly valuation now exceeds that of traditional rivals such as General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co.
So far, Tesla has operated as a niche producer of luxury electric vehicles, with a charismatic, showman CEO who interacts regularly with fans on his Twitter account.
Now the loss of Tesla is trying to move in a different league, building high volume vehicles for customers able to pay only a few thousand dollars more than the average price of a conventional car or truck sold in the United States.
Model 3 is part of Musk’s broader plan to build a clean energy and transportation company that offers electric semitrailers, rooftop solar power systems and large-scale battery storage systems.
