Today Tesla will take an important step in CEO Elon Musk’s secret master plan by unveiling its first mass market car: the Model 3. The vehicle is touted as the first compelling and affordable long-range electric car. You can follow our live blog here with updates leading to the event and then our comments on the event itself.
When: Today March 31st, 8:30 PM PT – 3:30am UTC
Where: Tesla’s Design Studio in Hawthorne, California
Livestream: Tesla.com
If you want to reserve the Model 3, Tesla revealed all the reservation process details per region and here’s everything we know about the vehicle, as well as our exclusive Tesla Model 3 leaked specs.
Updates are in chronological order with most recent at the top. You can simply refresh the page to get latest update and participate in the comments or via Twitter:
Update: Tesla Model 3: everything we know after the unveil, safety, range, charging [Gallery + Video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHxLFTCLiEU&feature=youtu.be
12:10pm ET – T+1h10: Here’s a quick gallery:
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- Model 3 prototype interior
11:59pm ET – T+0h59: 115k reservations in the first 24 hours
11:58pm ET – T+0h58: Here’s the interior:
11:56pm ET – T+0h26: Here’s the Model 3:
[tweet https://twitter.com/TeslaMotors/status/715749152638914560 align=’center’]
11:54pm ET – T+0h24: “most advanced cells and battery at the Gigafactory” – Elon Musk
11:51pm ET – T+0h21: Double supercharger coverage, quadruple destination chargers and double service locations.
11:50pm ET – T+0h20: Most cargo in its segment, supercharging standard and glass roof.
11:48pm ET – T+0h18: Elon says minimum of 215 EPA-rated miles and autopilot hardware.
11:47pm ET – T+0h17: Elon highlights Model 3 safety. 5 start and every category again.
11:43pm ET – T+0h13: Elon is going through Tesla’s lineup leading to the Model 3.
11:40pm ET – T+0h10: Elon is preaching to the choir about his secret master plan
11:38pm ET – T+0h08: Elon!
11:37pm ET – T+0h07: Tesla’s design chief is on stage.
11:36pm ET – T+0h06: Now showing crowd on main feed and not only Periscope.
11:35pm ET – T+0h05: 5 minutes late. what else is new?
11:30pm ET – T-0h00: Official Periscope is live
11:28pm ET – T-0h02: it looks ready to start:
11:23pm ET – T-0h07: Tesla could make history today and actually start an event on time! we’ll see in less than 10 minutes.
10:35pm ET – T-0h55: I got my reservation:
10:23pm ET – T-1h07: Online reservations: http://model3.tesla.com/store and event page: http://model3.tesla.com/ are live.
10:03pm ET – T-1h27: Brillant check list about the announcement by Dakujem on Reddit:
9:30pm ET – T-2h00: 2 hours before the event and just an hour before doors open and online reservations start. Keep in mind that Musk said that this will only be the first part of the Model 3 unveil and next one will be closer to the start of production in late 2017. So be warned if he doesn’t talk about a few features you were expecting.
9:05pm ET – T-2h25: Just a few hours away from the unveil and Tesla is expected to announce a staggering number of reservations sight-unseen:
[tweet https://twitter.com/llsethj/status/715696330308497408 align=’center’]
8:00pm ET – T-3h30: Tesla’s stock price closed up 1.4% in afterhour trading ahead of the unveil – more than it did during regular trading hours.
6:40pm ET – T-4h50: Less than 5 hours away from the start of the event and livestream. Less than 4 hours away from the doors opening at Hawthornes and the start of online reservations.
5:18pm ET – T-6h12: Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla will accept Model 3 reservations in countries where the automaker currently doesn’t have operations:
[tweet https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/715647321019551744 align=’center’]
4:45pm ET – T-6h45: Lines are still going strong at several Tesla locations on the west coast according to recent reports – less so on the east coast, Europe and Asia where doors have been opened for a while now:
4:34pm ET – T-6h56: wow! Elon Musk just confirmed that online orders will now start one hour early for fear that it will overload Tesla’s server if combined with the livestream:
[tweet https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/715637755598901248 align-‘center’]
4:00pm ET – T-7h30: Tesla’s stock price was up 4% ($237) at its highest today, but tumbled during the last hour to a close still up just 1.2% ($229). As usual, Tesla’s events are late and not even the afterhour market will be online when the company unveils the Model 3. We will have to wait until tomorrow to get a good idea of how the market feels about the vehicle.
3:30pm ET – T-8h00: Based on reports of the number of people lining up at each Tesla stores, it looks like Tesla could easily reach 100,000 reservations by the end of the day – once online reservations are also available. At ~$1,000 (depending on currency/country) that’s $100 million interest free loan for Tesla.
That’s the face of a CEO whose company is getting $100 million today:
3:10pm ET – T-8h20: We are still getting a lot of fake leak tips and some publications are falling for it. To make sure you don’t fall for it just take a quick look at our roundup of the most common Model 3 fake leaks we’ve seen.
2:50pm ET – T-8h40: Musk confirmed being “incredibly inspired” by the interest in the Model 3 today and he was all smile when he stopped by to give everyone a high-five in the crowd waiting for a Model 3 reservation at Tesla Century City in LA earlier today:
2:46pm ET – T-8h44: in-store reservations have been available all day today here’s our roundup of the results at a bunch of Tesla retail locations: Tesla Model 3: in-store reservations a success as impressive lines of people are spotted around the world [Live updates]
2:40pm ET – T-8h50: Live blog is well… live!
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Elon musk greeting all the people in line at the century city tesla store. Long line.
I hope there will be a counter during the reveal showing how many people are enlisting. That would be great.
I was thinking the same thing, this is one possible reason why the web reservations start at the same time as the event. It could start at 50K to 100K after today and grow from there. That would be when the other manufacturers start to think more seriously about making really good electric vehicles.
“who’s company”
Whose.
I was maybe # 600 at UTC San Diego. Showed up at 8:30 am for their 10:00 am opening. Gave my credit card info at 1:00 pm. Sort of anticlimactic – not even a receipt to show that I was there. Hope they got my info right!
So excited.
I can’t wait, I’m going to pr order it online, I don’t have a Tesla store near me. I wish the reservation price wasn’t so high, I know it’s not really, but for me it is, I’m a college student, but I think that $1000 will be totally worth it in the end!
Do you see people lining up for the next GM Car? Toyota? Mercedes or BMW?
phew. That was not too much information… I like the specs, the supercharging, the exterior. I’m not sure about what I saw from the interior, especially the one large center display with no dashbord. With a car, that gives you no acoustic clues as to how fast you are, I really, really would prefer at least a speedometer always in sight.
Hope they change that in the production car.
I’m sure the dashboard will be much different than this prototype.