Image source: Tesla Motors. Tesla received more than 115,000 reservations in 24 hours, Musk said on stage at the company's Hawthorne, California, design studio.
Musk also said that Tesla will expand to India before the start of Model 3 production and that the new wheels unveiled with the prototypes will make it to production.
The Palo Alto automaker has yet to break a profit. Numerous executives who worked on the Model 3, including Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel and chief designer Franz von Holzhausen, have been part of the company's leadership team for years.
The exterior of the Model 3 styling reminds be of the Porsche Panameras front and like a smaller Model S. The interior does not have normal dashboards like most cars, it has a 15 inch tablet screen displaying all the information.
On Twitter, Musk estimated that the average selling price of a Model 3 with options would be around $42,000. At that price, Tesla would have racked up $9 billion in potential sales in just two days. The company has struggled to launch vehicles on time under his watch.
Musk said it would accelerate from zero to 100kph in less than 6 seconds.
But initial demand for Model 3 finally validates the demand side of the equation in Tesla's bullish forecasts for vehicle sales.
Tesla says scale from the massive facility will cut the cost of its battery pack by 30 per cent to enable the lower-priced vehicle.
The Model 3 represents Musk's steepest challenge.
The $US35,000 ($45,579) Model 3 will have a minimum 346 kilometres range, and Musk said he's "fairly confident" deliveries will begin in 2017. Design features include one large, continuous piece of glass for the rear roof area to enhance visibility. Musk asked. "The answer is yes". Tesla's Fremont, California, factory can accommodate assembly of 500,000 autos, said the company, which has yet to master manufacturing in high volumes. He said the company plans to double its stores worldwide to 441 by the end of 2017, and it will double its Superchargers to 7,200.
Tesla lowered the cost of the auto, in part, by making cheaper batteries.
Before the Tesla event started, buyers had to go to a Tesla store to reserve a Model 3. "They deserve a lot of credit", he said.
Jose Ordonez queued up at 7 a.m. outside the Tesla store at the Stanford Shopping Center. Either way, the Model 3 is already changing the industry, spurring competitors to speed development of electric cars and improve their battery range.
She'll have to wait at least 18 months and probably longer. "I'm pretty patient", she said.
Musk acknowledged the frenzy in a Friday tweet: "Definitely going to need to rethink production planning..."
Source: Tesla Motors unveils Model 3 - Electric cars for ordinary buyers
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