Tesla Model 3 sold out for first year build 19 | 10 | 2016
TESLA BOSS ELON MUSK has confirmed the company’s Model 3 car has now sold out for the first 12 months of production. The US car giant has also confirmed first deliveries of the car, if ordered now, won’t be made until “at least” the middle of 2018.
A change to the Tesla website now reads: 'Delivery estimate for new reservations is mid-2018 or later’. Cars ordered in the first, earlier tranche should still receive their cars next year.
Key to the delay is the fact the company received around half a million deposits for its Model 3, making it the company's biggest-selling product so far.
Related: Tesla Model 3 orders hit 325,000
The current order book is valued at $14 billion (£9.95bn): in the US the car starts at $35,000 (about £25,000), though in the UK we can expect to pay more due to additional taxes.
The massive order book would mean the firm's Gigafactory, which has an expected annual output of 500,000 batteries a year, would use the vast majority of its production capacity to fulfil Model 3 orders.
Such was the clamour to order Tesla’s family-sized electric vehicle — it will compete wth the likes of the Audi A4 and BMW 3 Series — that 276,000 deposits were put down on the Model 3 in the first 72 hours of the order books being opened; 117,000 of those were placed before the car had been unveiled.
Related: £35m EV investment plan for UK
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Jim McGill