Tesla Model 3: Elon Musk finally delivers a $35,000 electric car

In late 2017, we learned that Tesla was attempting to build its very first computer chip for self-driving cars, and Elon Musk said in October 2018 that the silicon was a mere six months away. Now — in an unusual example of Elon Musk correctly predicting when a product will launch — Tesla has revealed that the chip is actually here on schedule.

In fact, Musk says it’s been shipping its new Full Self Driving Chip in the Tesla Model S and Model X for over a month now, and has been placing it in the Model 3 for ten days already.

The question of whether, and to what extent, cars are like phones has been gently bubbling along over the past few years as we’ve watched the nexus of innovation shifting from the technology we carry in our pocket to that which carries us along the roads. It’s obvious now that cars will experience transformative change like phones did before them, but how many parallels between the two are really there?

If you want to see a company doing its utmost to reduce the complexities of a car down to a familiar phone-like interface, you need look no further than Tesla and its new Model 3. This is the most affordable electric car in Tesla’s stable and it has the most aggressively stripped-down interior — from any manufacturer. There’s a 15-inch touchscreen in the middle of the dash and a couple of buttons on the steering wheel and that’s it. Given how Apple’s iPhone was the phone that made this “one touchscreen to rule them all” interface paradigm familiar in the first place, I thought it’d be fitting to look at the similarities between the iPhone and this new Model 3, as a proxy for answering how similar cars and phones have become.

Tesla handed over the first Model 3 cars to customers Friday night at an event just outside the company’s headquarters in Fremont, California. But before those happy early adopters drove home in their all-electric dream cars, Elon Musk spent a few minutes speaking to the crowd and to a live stream. It went about as well as most of his public speeches go, with the Tesla CEO oscillating between funny, awkward, and sort of heartfelt. And then, of course, he made the same sex joke he’s been making for years.

It’s time he stopped.

Tesla finally delivered the first 30 units of the Model 3 this past evening, and now that the production version of the company’s mass-market electric car is out in the wild, one key detail has finally been confirmed: the interior is going to look unlike anything else on the market. There’s one 15-inch, bezel-free, horizontally-oriented touchscreen panel — and that’s it. No instrument cluster, no heads-up display. The rest of what’s in front of you is just a smooth dashboard and a the windshield.

CEO Elon Musk had warned as much on Twitter since last year’s initial unveiling that the interior of the production version of the Model 3 would look as spartan as the prototype. And he has been steadfast in his confidence that people will like it, at one point telling a fan outright that “you won’t care” that there’s no instrument cluster or HUD. Still, it’s hard to imagine it won’t take some adjusting for anyone who’s driven a car before, because all the basic information you need while driving is now slightly more than just a glance away.

I felt like I was driving in an Eames chair. That was my first impression as I climbed into the driver’s seat of the Tesla Model 3 at the Fremont Factory on Friday afternoon. It took a moment to orient myself — no gauges, no speedometer, no airplane cockpit cues. Instead, one continuous smooth line between myself and the road ahead, offset by natural, unfinished wood. The premium model of the Model 3 caught me off guard. After hearing so much hype about this car, I was surprised that my first reaction was a profound sense of delight. It wasn’t bland, nor sterile, nor cheap feeling. Here was something different. Here was an exercise in minimalism. Here was the car Elon Musk promised to make 14 years ago.

Much has been made of the tall order that Tesla has to deliver on to manufacture an electric car for the people, but first the young car company had to prove the most essential aspect: finishing a product that people would want to drive, fulfilling the dream that makes it the company that has shaken up the auto industry.

With the release of Tesla’s Model 3 tonight to the first 30 customers (really just Tesla employees, according to multiple reports), it’s easy to lose sight of how far this young automaker has come — and how much impact it’s had on the rest of the industry.

Most of the commentary around the Model 3 is focused on the stakes for Tesla, and many are parsing over every tweet by CEO Elon Musk for clues about the car’s cost, interior, and what sort of options will be available. But how has Tesla changed they way we shop for and drive cars? What realities about the nature of the business has it forced its competitors to face? Let’s examine this more closely:

You probably haven’t heard, but today is a very important day for Elon Musk and Tesla. Later this evening, Musk will host an exclusive handover party for 30 customers who reserved the Model 3, Tesla’s first mass-market electric car. They will be the first people in the world (not named Musk) to receive what is widely seen as one of the most important electric cars of our time.

For Tesla, it’s all been leading to the Model 3. If you believe the hype, this is the car that will rescue us from the evil clutches of the internal combustion engine — and for just $35,000. So the pressure is on Tesla to finally deliver on its promise of bringing clean, sustainable driving to the masses.

On Tesla’s earnings call this afternoon, Elon Musk spent most of his opening comments talking about improving manufacturing, which is becoming an urgent priority for the company as it faces the task of increasing vehicle production five-fold or more to accommodate Model 3 reservations — just as it takes heat over early quality issues with the Model X. “Tesla is going to be hell-bent on becoming the best manufacturer on Earth,” he said, imploring “the best manufacturing people in the world” to “join our company.”

Part of that is a bold plan announced today to make 500,000 cars in total by 2018, two years faster than Tesla had previously planned. To that end, Musk said that the company is looking for the Model 3 to be at “production capability” by July 1st of next year, acknowledging in the same breath that the date likely will not be met but that “there needs to be penalties internally or externally for anyone who doesn’t meet that timeframe.” “We need to hold peoples’ feet to the fire,” he added.

Tesla announced Thursday that it has received 325,000 preorders for its recently unveiled Model 3. If it sells every car that’s been reserved, the company says it will earn enough revenue to make this the “biggest one-week launch of any product ever.” A few days ago, the electric car company was saying it had received twice the number of preorders it originally expected to get. Now it’s quickly approaching three times that number, which raises questions about the company’s ability to meet its increasingly complex production goals.

If it can, it stands to make a boatload of money. Tesla says the number of preorders it has received so far corresponds to $14 billion in implied future sales. And it boasts that it was able to generate hype for the Model 3 without advertisements or “paid endorsements.” The company has raked in $325 million on just Model 3 deposits alone. Fortunately for those more fickle fans, the $1,000 deposit is refundable.

The steering wheel setup in the Tesla Model 3 — seen above in a shot from the media event last week — is not the version that will be in the final car, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said tonight in a series of tweets.

Instead, the “real steering controls and system” for the Model 3 feel “like a spaceship.“ Musk went on to say that the lack of a traditional dashboard and instrument cluster “will make sense after part 2” of the Model 3 unveiling. That’s expected to come much closer to production.

Tesla didn’t expect preorder interest in the new Model 3 to be as high as it is, according to company CEO Elon Musk. The company has amassed 276,000 preorders in the first three days.

In a number of tweets this afternoon, Musk both expressed his appreciation to current and future Tesla owners for their faith in the company, and revealed that Tesla expected one-quarter to one-half as much preorder interest as they have received.

Judging from the $200 million in deposits Tesla has already raked in, the Model 3 has quickly found its fans in the last 24 hours — so quickly, in fact, that Elon Musk is openly wondering how he’ll make all those cars.

Don’t get me wrong, the car looks nice (complaints about the grille-less front end aside). And from the all-too-brief moment I spent in it as a passenger last night, I get the impression that this is probably going to be a great car, just like the Model S before it. But I can’t stop thinking about the dashboard, a spartan expanse of absolutely nothing broken only by a steering wheel and a plain 15-inch touchscreen on a floating mount that looks like it could’ve been pulled off a Lenovo workstation pilfered from an office cubicle. In place of the instrument cluster, the driver has to sneak peeks at the speed by glancing at a widget in the upper left of the big screen.

The Chevrolet Bolt and the Tesla Model 3 are the first affordable, long-distance — over 200 miles of range — electric vehicles. They’ve both been announced, and will eventually hit dealerships. The Chevy Bolt, however, has a one-year head start on the Tesla. And because Elon Musk has already taken almost 200,000 preorders on the Model 3, you’re at the back of a very long line if you order one now. At this point, you might not get your Tesla until well into 2018.

Why will the Model 3 be released so long after the Chevy Bolt? Perhaps it’s because General Motors is a massive carmaker who has significant experience launching new cars. Or perhaps it’s that the Tesla Model 3 is such an amazing car, it takes more time to figure out how to build it in volume.

Last night, Tesla introduced the Model 3, its affordable electric car for the masses. The masses have responded, with more than 180,000 preorders placed in the first 24 hours.

Update April 1st, 1:24PM ET: Elon Musk says in a tweet that preorders have reached 198,000 and that “the wait time is growing rapidly.”

This is Tesla’s moment. It wasn’t the Roadster, nor the Model S, nor the Model X — it’s the Model 3 that matters, the practical EV for the masses that Elon Musk intended to eventually be able to make all along. This car has been a solid decade in the making.

But somehow, it all feels a little anticlimactic.

Last night, Elon Musk unveiled Tesla’s Model 3 to an audience of eager, electric car acolytes. The car, which will range 215 miles per charge and start at $35,000, is set to begin deliveries at the end of 2017. So unless you were one of the lucky few who got to take a test ride at the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne last night, this supercut is the best thing you’ll have to sustain yourself. Watch liberally.

Musk is not the most captivating public speaker, although his presentations can be charming and unpretentious. He spoke about rising CO2 levels and the need to shift to a more sustainable form of transportation. He even made a pretty corny April Fools’ joke. But rather than make you sit through his whole presentation again, just watch the highlights above.

This evening, Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the long-awaited Tesla Model 3. It’s the most important car Tesla has ever made, and they’ve already taken more than 130,000 reservations.

It should ship late next year, starting at around $35,000, with a base range of 215 miles. It can go 0-60 mph in less than six seconds and will include support for Tesla’s long-range Supercharger network.

Elon Musk just unveiled the Model 3 at the Tesla headquarters in Hawthorne, CA. He also shared that more than 100,000 people put a deposit down on the mass-market electric car before they even knew what the thing looked like. Pictures and live streams have been pouring in from the event, but Tesla has also just posted official photos and videos, including the one you see above of a matte gray Model 3 on a test track.

It’s a short video, and we certainly don’t see the prototype Model 3 get up to speed. (There’s not even sound, though perhaps that’s appropriate considering it’s an electric car.) But it’s a glimpse at what’s to come from what will surely wind up being Tesla’s most popular car.

The Tesla Model 3 is here — sort of. It won’t actually ship to the thousands of customers with preorders until late 2017, but we finally have our first look at it, even if Elon Musk says this is just Part 1 of the Tesla Model 3 story. Part 2 is yet to come.

Tesla says the car will go more than 215 miles on a charge and will start at $35,000, though it will be possible to run the price much higher with added options.

Tesla has brought in more than $115 million in preorders on the new Model 3 today, according to company CEO Elon Musk. That’s 115,000 cars worth more than $4 billion at the base price of $35,000 — but expect many of those cars to sell for considerably more than the base price.

He revealed the numbers at the end of the special event for media and current Tesla owners, though we don’t know much more about the car other than the base price, the fact that it will go at least 215 miles on a charge, and that it’ll ship at the end of next year.

After ten years of waiting, Tesla has revealed the Model 3, the vehicle that CEO Elon Musk hopes will take the electric car to the masses.

At the unveiling of the Model 3 this evening at the company’s design studio in Hawthorne, California, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the car will deliver at least 215 miles of range beginning at just $35,000 — that’s a bold claim, and an important one for Tesla to meet. Musk is “fairly confident” that deliveries will begin by the end of 2017, and “you will not be able to buy a better car for $35,000, even with no options.” And it will be one of the safest cars in the world, according to Musk.