Never one to shy away from controversial accounting, Tesla CEO Elon Musk today tweeted his take on the initial Model 3 sales numbers which are at 180K barely 24 hours into sales. By his math, which he estimates an average of $7000 in options on each Model 3 sold and more controversially, counting every Model 3 reservation as a sale, he’s come up with a $7.5 billion payday for Tesla.
Model 3 orders at 180,000 in 24 hours. Selling price w avg option mix prob $42k, so ~$7.5B in a day. Future of electric cars looking bright!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 1, 2016
Clearly, everyone who put down $1000 yesterday and today isn’t going to buy a Model 3 worth an average price of $42,000. But a huge number of those people will and more importantly, many more people will try to get in early to reap the $7500 tax incentive from the US government over the coming months.
Update: The reservation count is now nearing 200K and we’re likely nearing the end of the $7500 tax credit window.
Thought it would slow way down today, but Model 3 order count is now at 198k. Recommend ordering soon, as the wait time is growing rapidly.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 1, 2016
The reservation to order conversation rate could end up fairly high, but it’s unlikely that will be 100% like Musk is suggesting in his latest tweet. Not everyone was surprised by the high number of Model 3 purchases however.
From the deposits alone, Tesla now has a virtual $180 million 18-month interest-free loan.
Investors and Wall Street analysts are mostly happy with Tesla’s Model 3 event last night and the reservation results. The company’s stock (TSLA) surged about 10% in early trading before settling down to a 3% gain at ~$236 right after the opening bell.
You can read our post summarizing everything new we learned at the Model 3 event here.
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Go checkout the google trends for model 3 vs S/X. I say 300 000 before the summer
I do not think Elon meant each order would have an average of $7,000 in extras. He’s probably assuming ~25% of orders will have many extras and their cars will be sold for $50K+, which when averaged with $35,000 standards comes out to ~$7K added on to each of the orders.
To be fair, the number of new reservations needs to cancel out cancellations to get to this result. So It can be seen as a fair take
I made my reservation last night but have yet to receive a confirmation e-mail. Has anyone received anything like a confirmation e-mail yet?
I made my res. some 15hours ago – still no e-mail.
I made my reservation just 35 minutes after our store opened a 9AM, as I was #66 in line.
My welcome to Tesla email was 2 minutes later, automated msg. My confirmation email indicating payment was received, came about 5 mintes later or less. My credit card also showed yhe payment as Pending before noon!
I also took the business card of my rep that entered the info, and of the Manager, in case I had any questions or issues.
Maybe you could contact the store where you reserved and ask your question? That is why they have staff, to answer your questions!
No email yet. I logged into my account on teslamotors.com and see I have a reservation number now.
The 200,000 unit limit for the federal tax credit has nothing to do with reservations but only applies when the car is purchased. Who knows how many more S or X will be sold before the first 3 is sold…