By the end of Monday, 276,000 pre-orders had been placed for the Model 3 worldwide.
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Furthermore, for the Model 3 sedan, which Tesla has said will be simpler to build than the Model S or the X, will likely not face any major production bottlenecks. Customers were asked to put down $1,000 U.S.to order the cars, which go on sale in late 2017.
Musk tweeted when sales reached 200,000 that the company was “definitely going to need to rethink production planning”.
Tesla owners are electric vehicle owners, and thus can benefit from a federal $7,500 tax credit.
While analysts see a pick-up in Model X deliveries and a huge opportunity with the Model 3, they warned of execution risk with the mass-market auto and said the key for Tesla is to get production in order. About 115,000 were ordered before the car’s details were officially released. On Twitter, Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk has been teasing auto enthusiasts with messages saying things like the Model 3 will feel like a “spaceship”. After Model S and X, the Palo Alto automaker has effectively crowdfunded the development of its Model 3.
Tesla also mentions its inability to manufacture those parts in-house and that the combination of these issues have resulted in production delays for the Model X which is not something the company wants to make a habit out of.
Musk said that he expected around 20 to 30 people to show up at Tesla stores to place orders, not the hundreds that showed up at some places. About 35 percent, or 5.5 million units, of new cars sold in the USA market a year ago, had the price tag of more than US$35,000 (40 million won). The parts shortages were limited to a half-dozen items in a vehicle with more than 8,000 pieces. The range is more than double the figures of the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3. But the lower total still caused the company’s stock to take a 3% haircut on Monday, according to MarketWatch.
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The stock slipped 2.4 percent in after-hours trading after the company announced its first-quarter deliveries.
