Prototype

We had a good look at the Model 3 during the unveil event last month, and Tesla shared a few promo shots afterward, but it’s always interesting to see a product in a non-staged environment and where it is intended to be utilized. In the case of the Model 3, that would be on the road.

At the unveiling event, Tesla officials described the Model 3 units used for test rides as “engineering validation cars”. While Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the company was still working on the vehicles and a few design details will end up more refined than what we are seeing right now, it does sound like those Model 3’s are close to what will go into production next year.
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Ever since Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a comment about the Model 3 unveiling during a special event for Tesla owners at the company’s France headquarters in Chambourcy last January, there’s been persisting speculations that Tesla would only show pictures of the car during its March 31 unveiling.

When asked about when we will get to see pictures of the Model 3, Musk answered:

“The first pictures of the Model 3 will be end of March… I am being a little coy here, we are not gonna show everything about the Model 3 until a lot closer to production time.”

An audience member asked for more details, but as it is often the case when it comes to future products, Musk refused to elaborate. At the time we reported on the comment, we simply interpreted it as something similar to the Model X unveiling where some of the features weren’t revealed until the launch years later, but never as an indication that Tesla would only show pictures since the question was directly asking for pictures – probably since the person asking wasn’t expecting to be able to go and see the car in person.

But it didn’t stop speculations. Now after Tesla sent out more invites for the March 31 unveiling in Los Angeles, we are now told that Tesla will indeed have Model 3 prototypes at the event and not only pictures.
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Less than 2 weeks away from its big reveal at CES, Faraday Future released today a teaser video hinting at a new car ownership experience for its upcoming long-range electric vehicle.
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Last week Tesla opened the online design studio of its upcoming all-electric SUV, the Model X, to a select few reservation holders. Bringing online the design studio gave us a chance to see the final design of the Mode X, especially a great look at the interior, but Tesla didn’t include a 360 degree view of the vehicle and the company is intentionally not showing the front-end (see picture above).

We have seen so many spy-shots of Model X prototypes in the past few months that there’s little left to the imagination at this point, but Tesla might still have a few surprises for us…
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During the conference call discussing Tesla’s Q1 2015 financial results, JB Straubel, Tesla’s CTO, revealed that they were operating a fleet of “hundreds” of Model X prototypes.  Generally, these prototypes, when testing on open roads, are covered by wrapping to camouflage the body in order to keep the final design somewhat secret. Today, a picture of a Model X with almost no wrapping emerged.

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Today Tesla announced their first quarter 2015 results and during the conference call discussing the results, Elon Musk confirmed Tesla plans to unveil their third generation vehicle, the Model 3, in March 2016.

Tesla already revealed their plan on starting the production of the Model 3 in 2017, but today Elon Musk said that he sees “late 2017” as more realistic.

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Tesla Motor Club Forums members are posting images from a Facebook account which followed a prototype Tesla Model S around the Fremont area. Supposedly the Model X design is done and only needs to be validated so we’re probably looking at near final design albeit camo’d with black to cover up final design aesthetics.

Noteworthy in the pictures is that this one has a trailer hitch which was promised by Tesla last year and a redesigned sportier front as you can see in the comparison picture below.

It will be interesting to see if the Model S also gets a redesigned nose.

One of the nice things about the Model X front end was that the Frunk was huge. With the smaller front end, it appears that it will be more the size of the Frunk in the Model S.