The Tesla Model 3 will have at least 200 miles useable range, not 250

A Times-Picayune, Greater New Orleans author inadvertently created a Model 3 rumor Tuesday, after quoting Elon Musk stating a range of 250 miles for Tesla’s upcoming mass market vehicle. The sudden 50 mile range increase from what Tesla had been promising took many by surprise, especially considering it would place the range of the $35,000 Model 3 in the same category as the currently $75,000 Model S 70D (240 miles).

Today, video footage of the event the alleged quote came from, the Edison Electric Institute annual convention, surfaced online.

Thirty-Four minutes in, we hear this from Elon Musk:

We’re working on our third generation car, which is a smaller car, that’s meant to be an affordable long range electric car, which is the Model 3. And that’s due out in late 2017. And that’s going to be about $35,000 and have at least 200 mile useful range. Hopefully a fair bit more than that.

So, it looks like the story hasn’t changed and Elon was simply misquoted by the Times reporter. Though we could indeed see a higher official EPA estimated range than 200 miles due to the way those numbers are calculated, don’t plan that 250 mile Model 3 road trip just yet.

Also of note from the video, Elon hints at 27:35 that Superchargers may eventually go higher than the current 135kW limit. This was also hinted later in the week during Tesla’s annual shareholders meeting, when Elon discussed the new liquid-cooled Supercharging cables that recently debuted at the Mountain View, CA Supercharger location.