The first production unit of Tesla Motors’ much-anticipated “mid-price” Model 3 electric car will roll off its Fremont, California assembly line this week, the company announced, with the first 30 cars to be delivered to buyers before the end of the month.
In a series of tweets Sunday, Reuters reports, CEO Elon Musk said the Model 3 had “passed all regulatory requirements for production two weeks ahead of schedule.” Musk said output of the vehicles will “grow exponentially, so Aug[ust] should be 100 cars and Sept[ember] above 1,500. We can reach 20,000 Model 3 cars per month in Dec[ember].”
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Tesla has received deposits for more than 300,000 Model 3s, which start at US$35,000 in the United States before various state and federal purchase incentives.
The announcement drew attention away from the company’s disclosure that its 47,000 first-half deliveries of electric sedans and SUVs was “at the lower end of its own forecasts”, constrained by a “severe shortfall” of new battery packs turned out by the company’s Nevada gigafactory, which opened earlier this year.
The company said battery and automobile production would both pick up in the second half of 2017.
