2018 Tesla Model three Photos and Info – News – Car and Driver
2018 Tesla Model Three
It has the size and stance of another car called the three (from Mazda), its single instrument is a billboard-like 15-inch touchscreen glowing in the dash, it accelerates with the almost silent rush that cheetahs use to get their lunch, and it will embark at $35,000 when it very first reaches customers, which at this moment is said to be the end of 2017. Welcome to the “affordable” Tesla Model three that 115,000 people supposedly put deposits on before the very secretive car was even shown to the public at a launch party at SpaceX, Tesla’s sister company headquartered in Hawthorne, California.
From the side and back, the sedan Model three looks like a Model S with a very tall roof and a bobbed nose and tail. Up front, it has a blunt upturned snout that evokes the original Tesla Roadster as well as the fresh, sealed-up prow of the Model X. It is genetically linked to all of its ancestors—both in the styling and in the many pounds of lithium-ion batteries packed into the floor (also, all but the Roadster have front and rear trunks). It owes a strenuous debt to the other cars in Tesla’s lineup.
“For all of you who bought an S or an X, thank you for helping pay for the Model Three,” Tesla chief Elon Musk told the crowd, referring to the Model three as the culmination of Tesla’s “secret master plan” to hasten the arrival of zero-emissions, self-driving transportation by producing a series of increasingly cheaper and more-practical cars. “With any fresh technology, it takes numerous iterations and economies of scale before you can make it affordable,” Musk said. A mass-market car “was only possible to do . . . after going through the prior steps.”
This is the car that will either save Tesla or kill it. To implement up for the expected volumes, which could be in the range of 75,000 a year the very first duo of years, Tesla will risk a lot of capital on ramping up production, retail, and service capacity, making the Model three Tesla’s do-or-die moment. Everything will be fatter, from the factory parts inventory to the number of robots in the bod shop to the size of the fleet of trucks needed to ship the product to the financial risks of a recall.
Beyond what’s written above, we don’t have a entire lot more details about the Model Trio. Musk says the base model will have a 215-mile range and will accelerate from zero to sixty mph in less than six seconds. There also will be a dual-motor, all-wheel-drive version. He also promises that it will achieve five-star crash-test ratings and that Autopilot hardware will be standard. The company is otherwise being very stingy with the details. For example, it won’t tell us the sizes of the available batteries (thought to be inbetween forty and sixty kWh) or what the car is made out of. The Model S and Model X are primarily aluminum, but that’s an expensive material and, at the Model 3’s price, a raunchy cost challenge. Even so, during our brief test rail, we calmly touched a puny magnet to various outer panels, the inward doors, and the structural pile inbetween the doors and got not a single quiver of attraction. A Tesla engineer told us the car is a mix of steel and aluminum but refused to elaborate. Unless the prototypes we sat in were made from nonproduction materials, there’s not much steel in that assets.
Musk boasts that the Model three has more interior space than any car with its exterior dimensions, but we’re doubtful. The back seat is snug for the knees, mainly because the underfloor battery pack necessitates a high cabin floor and also because the front seats are thick thrones. The tall side glass means there’s slew of headroom, however, and an enormous panoramic rear glass that forms over the rear passengers’ goes helps give the cabin the feel of airy spaciousness. Up front, the driver faces a dashboard that’s totally nude save for the oversize, horizontally oriented touchscreen; the speedometer readout is in the upper left-hand corner.
Musk did let slip that there will be higher-performance variants coming, and prototypes were shown with big, carbon-fiber-accented wheels and with matte paint jobs. Can a Tesla spectacle sub-brand be too far off? Perhaps they should just call it L, for Ludicrous.
In its brief history, Tesla has developed a sultry fan base. Just two weeks ago, the company sent out an email to its owners asking them to hit reply if they wished to come to Los Angeles at their own expense to see the expose of the Model Three. The invite included the chance to get a two-minute chauffeured blast up and down Jack Northrop Drive adjacent to the SpaceX plant. By all accounts, thousands responded. The six hundred fifty or so who made the cut for a launch party that, by Tesla standards, was a relatively intimate affair, flew in from as far away as Austria to witness Musk introduce the electrified car he says he had in mind when he became involved with Tesla twelve years ago.
After negotiating a security net that rivaled the Oscars, as well as girthy goons in tight-fitting suits and studded sunglasses clearly veterans of the Hollywood string line (another switch from past Tesla events that have been rather tumultuous and disorganized affairs), Musk’s adoring army of acolytes were treated to an open bar and passed hors d’oeuvres while waiting for the showcase. The event itself was rather brief, Musk talking extemporaneously for scarcely twenty minutes and much of the time waiting for cheering to die down.
With the Model three exposed, now embarks a period very familiar to Tesla owners: the seemingly interminable wait until production embarks.