Since its release in 2012, the performance, ingenuity, safety, and commercial success of Tesla’s Model S has far exceeded almost everyone’s expectations. The forward-thinking luxury sedan has accumulated innumerable awards and truly demonstrated that there’s room for electric vehicles in the old and stodgy auto industry.
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But Tesla has grander plans than simply churning out high-end luxury sedans. For as long as Elon Musk has been the company’s CEO, he has been incredibly upfront about Tesla’s desire to leverage the success of the Model S to create an affordable electric car for the masses. The name of that car, we learned last year, is the Model 3.
For as innovative a company as Tesla is, one thing the company has long struggled with is meeting deadlines. Two years ago, Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen said that the Model 3 (which was then referred to as the Model E) would make its worldwide debut at the Detroit Auto Show in 2015. That obviously never came to pass, prompting the company to push back the unveiling to early 2016.
This past September, Elon Musk shed some more light on the roadmap for the Model 3, indicating that the company would show off the car in March of 2016 with an eventual $35,000 sticker price.
While it was certainly encouraging to have Tesla’s perfectionist of a CEO attach his name to such a bold prediction, there’s no getting around the fact that schedules at Tesla are seemingly always subject to change. That being the case, it’s even more encouraging that Tesla recently confirmed that the Model 3 remains on track for a March 2016 unveiling.
Speaking to Reuters, Tesla spokeswoman Khobi Brooklyn confirmed that the “Model 3 is on schedule” and will be unveiled in March of this year. Brooklyn further added that the company fully expects to start selling the car to consumers in 2017.
