SAN FRANCISCO: Tesla unveiled a new, cheaper model of its electric car aimed at the mass market on Thursday, taking more than 115,000 orders in the past 24 hours — nearly three times the number of cars it produced in all of last year.
The company said orders were piling up even though the new car won’t be available until late next year.
The new Model 3 will have a base price of $35,000, half that of the two models it now sells — the Model S and the Model X, which start at $70,000.
“The total number of orders for the Model 3 in the past 24 hours has now passed 115,000,” said company founder Elon Musk at a presentation of the new car.
The Model 3 is scheduled to hit the market late next year. Musk described it as “the final step in the master plan: a mass market, affordable car.”
With Model 3, Tesla aims to show it can appeal to the general public and produce cars en masse.
It should account for the lion’s share of the 500,000 cars that Tesla had set as its production goal for 2020. Last year, it turned out 50,000.
