CEO Musk says there’ll be a party.
The favoured platform of Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk, Twitter, was the medium of choice when he chose to confirm the delivery date of the EV company’s newest model, the Model 3. With over 400,000 having placed a US$1,000 deposit to buy Tesla’s most affordable car, to say the 3 is hotly anticipated would be a serious understatement.
July 28th will be the day the first batch of 30 customer cars will be handed over, which Tesla will celebrate with a handover party. “Model 3 passed all regulatory requirements for production two weeks ahead of schedule,” Musk said on Twitter. “Expecting to complete SN1 on Friday,” he continued before concluding, “Handover party for the first 30 customer Model 3s on the 28th!”
‘SN1’ probably means ‘Serial Number 1’ or something to that effect.
While the July 28th delivery date makes good on a deadline that Musk set earlier this year, Tesla’s output on the Model 3 remains relatively modest. Just 30 cars will be handed over on at the party, while August will see the completion of only 100 more 3’s for customers, while September will see only 1,500 cars built. Musk went on to tweet that the company is aiming for 20,000 Model 3s a month by December.
Meanwhile. the existing Model S and Model X cars have been facing delivery delays due to issues with its 100kWh batteries (the largest capacity it makes), resulting in just 22,000 units being handed over in Q2 of this year, representing a “severe shortfall” of expectations. In a statement given to Forbes, Musk said that the batteries in question are “made using new technologies on new production lines,” going further to say that “the technology challenge grows exponentially with energy density. Until early June, production averaged about 40% below demand.”
The issue has already been solved, however they held back first-half deliveries this year to just 47,100 cars as a precaution. Production figures for the second half of 2017 should remain as they ought to be, “provided global economic conditions do not worsen considerably.” Looking forward, the maverick CEO shared his optimism about Model Y, a future crossover that will be similar in size to the Model 3. “I am really excited about Model Y,” he said. “We are aiming for that to hit the roads in 2019, and probably the demand for Model Y will exceed the demand for Model 3.”
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