In an exclusive interview confirmed by a tweet from the company, Founder and CEO of Tesla Elon Musk told Auto Express that they will be releasing a new entry-level model in 2017. The 200-mile range Tesla Model 3, which has a projected price of around $35,000, will be unveiled in 2016 and available for purchase by 2017, as described in the July 16 article.
Initially rumored to be named them Model E, the Model 3 will actually be the fourth car to come from the electric vehicle manufacturer. Only two have made it to production so far, the Roadster and the Model S, with deliveries of the Model X crossover estimated to begin in the spring of 2015. Pricing for the Model X begins around $70,000 with a required $5,000 reservation payment.
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Musk described rather candidly how the name for the Model 3 came about in his interview with Auto Express. As he said, “We had the model S for sedan and X for crossover SUV, then a friend asked what we were going to call the third car. So I said we had the model S and X, we might as well have the E.”
Though the acronym would have provided the perfect colloquialism to describe Tesla’s first production models, a dispute with Ford lead to a change.
“We were going to call it model E for a while and then Ford sued us saying it wanted to use the Model E,” Musk continued. “The new model is going to be called Model 3, we’ll have three bars to represent it and it’ll be S III X!”
Be sure to stay with us as more information is released about the Model 3.
(Source: Auto Express)
