Yesterday (10th of July 2017) saw Elon Musk tweet in the first production Tesla Model 3 image (above) to showcase the next step in his company’s domination of the electric car market. Where the Model S and Model X were more luxury car propositions, the Model is much more affordable and with confirmation of the release date, price, battery life and in-car software, it’s definitely looking pretty exciting for anyone eyeing up a spot on the reservation list.
The third car model created by the tech giant was on unveiled back in March 2016, so it’s pretty impressive to see that it’s up to speed with production already. While there is still a long wait time for new reservations, it won’t be too long before they’re much easier to get hold of and with a target audience of premiums saloon drivers, Tesla could well be up there with Mercedes, BMW and Jaguar within the next 10 years or so.
Tesla Model 3 Price
The price of a Tesla Model 3 has been confirmed as starting at $35,000 for the US market, and while the official UK price hasn’t been confirmed as of yet, that should work out at around £27k, based on current exchange rates. It’s a lot less than either the Model S or X, which start at £61,500 and £75,400 respectively, so it should prove to be the most popular Tesla production car available when it starts to ship.
Release date
With production well under way, the big question of when is the Tesla Model 3’s release date will soon be answered by actually cars hitting the road. The first orders were planned to ship by the end of 2017 in the US, but it looks like we’ll be seeing it on the road in the next few months for the lucky few.
If you order the car now you’re looking at mid-2018 to be able to take your very own out for a spin and with the production capability to manufacture 500,000 cars a year, you should be able to rock up to a dealership and walk away with a Model 3 by the end of 2018.
Model 3 charge time
The Model 3 charge time at home is pretty much overnight to get the battery fully charged with the majority of homes featuring 1-phase grid connection, which will allow you to charge at 22 miles per hour. It’ll be able to run for 215 miles per full charge, so that’s essentially a little under 10 hours of charging from flat to get it up to capacity, so if you plug it in at 9pm at night, it’ll be charged by 7am the next day.
If your house has got a 3-phase grid connection then the charge time will come down to 6 hours 20 minutes at 34 miles per hour. You can get more capacity upgrades made to your homes grid connection, which can take the charge time to a maximum of just over 4 hours at 51 miles per hour if you really want more power, but you’ll probably only need this if you make 215 mile journeys and party late into the night every day.
In addition to home charging, you’ll also be able to call in on the network of supercharging stations, which provide 170 miles of range in as little as 30 minutes. You can see all of the locations in the UK and around the world thanks to Tesla’s map of supercharger stations.
You can also use the map to find destination chargers, which are usually found at restaurants, hotels and shopping centers. The charge time isn’t as rapid as the superchargers, with most being comparable to standard charging at home. However, there are more of them and with a couple of hours you can add a minimum of 44 miles into the battery, which is the equivalent to a trip from Reading to London.
First impressions
Tesla has set the standard for electric car brilliance over the last few years and with the Model 3, we’re expecting it to ramp things up significantly. The lower price will make it much more affordible, meaning more and more drivers will be able to make it their car make of choice. Production is now up to speed, so it’ll be shipping soon, but we’ll have to wait to hear about the UK release date as part of Tesla’s European plans.
