Tesla Model 3, coming in 2017 for $35,000

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.
If you missed Elon Musk's Tesla Model 3 reveal, watch the full video here.

0-60 MPH in less than 6 seconds
Tesla says more than 130,000 preorders — buyers need to put $1,000 down — have been placed, and that number will continue to rise.

The base car will do 0-60 mph in less than 6 seconds, with versions that go "much faster." Range will be at least 215 miles, but Tesla hopes to exceed those numbers in the final car. All Model 3 cars will include support for Tesla's high-speed Supercharging network, because "it's about going where you want to go," according to Musk. By the end of 2017, when the Model 3 launches, Tesla says it will have a total of 7,200 Superchargers, double the number available today.

215 miles of range, plus supercharger support is standard
Like the Model S, the Model 3 will come in both rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive versions, and there's a 15-inch landscape touchscreen inside — an interesting change from the 17-inch portrait touchscreen in the Model S and X. Autopilot hardware is standard, and all safety features will be active automatically. Five adults will fit comfortably — "comfortably is the important part here," says Musk.

Watch: 4k race footage of the Tesla Model 3

The front to rear roof area — from the windshield all the way to the trunk — will be one continuous piece of glass. And, just like the Model S, it will have front and rear trunks for storage. "More cargo capacity than any gasoline car of the same external dimensions," says Musk. You can even fit a 7-foot long surfboard on the inside.

starts at $35,000
The two current Tesla vehicles, the Model S and Model X, are both extremely expensive. Even with tax incentives, both cars easily push $100,000. In order for Tesla to sell ten times as many cars as it does now, it needs a much cheaper automobile. That's the Model 3. It's the future of the company.

But don't expect to get your hands on one any time soon. The Model 3 isn't expected to begin production until late 2017, more than 18 months from now. Tesla will happily take your preorder for a modest $1,000 down payment. Tesla plans to more than double the size of its dealership and service network by the end of next year, to sell and take care of all these new cars.

For comparison, the biggest direct competitor for the Model 3 is the Chevy Bolt. GM says that car will have an electric range greater than 200 miles and a price, after tax incentives, of around $30,000.
But today is all about the Model 3, the pinnacle of the Tesla Motors master plan. Elon Musk laid it all out in a blog post ten years ago:

• Build sports car - The Tesla Roadster
• Use that money to build an affordable car - The Model S
• Use that money to build an even more affordable car - The Model 3

At the announcement of the Model 3 this evening, Elon Musk even thanked Model S and Model X purchasers for funding the development of the car. The Model 3 is the culmination of a decade's worth of work. Elon Musk is betting billions on it, and it needs to deliver. The future of Tesla Motors, quite literally, rides on its success.

The Tesla Model 3 Boldly Kills The Front Grille

The most anticipated new car of this evening and possibly this year, the Tesla Model 3, is finally here. We’ve seen it. And, almost immediately upon seeing it, we’re judging it. Here’s my design breakdown based on what we’ve seen so far.

Overall, I think it’s a really strong design. Tesla has established a pretty crisp and coherent design vocabulary with the Model S and Model X, and the Model 3 is a pretty clear development of those basic ideas.

The most obvious part of the car that shows evolution of the Tesla design vocabulary (and also likely the most controversial part of the car) is right up front, where the grille is noted for its absence.

Electric cars have very different cooling needs than combustion cars, and don’t require the same large cooling air/manifold air intakes. The Model S, the first all-Tesla design, still felt compelled to hold a spot where a grille would traditionally go, with its large, grille-like glossy black panel.

The Model X reduced this vestigial grille-like feature to a small horizontal decoration, and finally Tesla has stepped up to the reality of their cars and is boldly going face-grille free with the Model 3.
There’s still a lower, below bumper-line air intake, but the traditional grille spot is now just a clean, sleek painted surface, with a sharp character line sort of defining the area where our anthropomorphizing brains want to see a mouth.

This design challenge has been tackled many times before by rear-engine (especially air-cooled) car makers, and the Model 3 has, I think, an uncanny resemblance to a modernized Renault Caravelle, which had its engine in the rear. Here, look:

Look at that forward rake, that character line in the front, the line of the hood trunk opening, the bumper position; if Renault showed this as a reborn Caravelle, I would have totally been on board.

That said, there’s a bit of Porsche-family resemblance in the front end, likely the product of convergent evolution since Porsche design vocabulary was based on the grille-less rear-engined front ends of the 356 and then the 911; hood and headlight relationships really do feel Porsche-like here.
Like the Model S, it has fantastic packaging, where the entire length of the car is usable for people or cargo. Tesla says it has way more room and cargo space than an engine-powered car of the same size.
The Model 3 has a front trunk and a rear hatch, with its engine (and batteries) built into the floor pan, on Tesla’s ‘skateboard,’ making it the modern spiritual successor to the VW Type 3 platform.

The Model 3 is sleek and clean and quite modern-looking. The short overhangs make it a bit less languidly elegant than a Model S, but the proportions are still quite good. The side window line kicks up pleasingly at the rear, without feeling too forced, and the greenhouse’s overall taper I suspect has aero benefits, but also gives the car a leaner overall look, and forms the ‘shoulders’ or ‘haunches’ at the rear that suggest a bit of animal-like musculature, a hint at the rear-wheel drive nature of the car.

I’m a little confused as to where the rear hatch opens; I can only see two cutlines, one really high (where the rear window glass meets the short roof glass (other non-glass options?) panel on top of the car, which would make an absurdly huge hatch, and one really low, which would make more of a trunk lid than a hatch. I guess we’ll have to see what opens.

The proportions of the wheels look good to me, and I’m glad Tesla resisted the temptation to oversize them too much.
My biggest complaint is probably that when you look at the car at certain angles, like this one:

It sort of has a slightly ghostly, unfinished quality. That lack of a grille that I championed a few paragraphs up can have the unsettling effect, combined with the overall clean, unadorned look of the car, where the car feels like it’s still covered by a silken sheet, or something.

I don’t exactly dislike it, but it does lend it the feeling of a sketch, or something like how objects might look to Daredevil, at least based on the dripped-wax effect of the opening credits:
See what I mean?

Overall, I do like the design, and think that it rides the line of being conventional enough for people to accept, while feeling just different and futuristic enough to get people excited and interested. There’s a lot of unbroken surface area here, so colors will be important, more so than on many conventional cars, and I hope Tesla makes equally bold choices here.

I’m excited to see one in person and really evaluate it, and get a peek at the interior, which so far all I can tell is it’s a huge tablet stuck to a dash.

I’ll get more details, and more qualified opinions as soon as I’m able.