Tesla opens Model 3 orders to more reservation holders

Less than 3 weeks after Tesla sent out the first batch of configuration invites for regular Model 3 reservation holders, they have now sent a second batch out today ahead of deliveries.

As we reported earlier today, Model 3 deliveries to non-employees or people not related to Tesla employees could start in the next few days – just 3 weeks after they sent out the invites.

Now, we’ve received reports that Tesla sent out a second batch of configuration invites to regular Model 3 reservation holders.

So far, it seems that the latest invitations are still only going out to those who reserved the first day in California and who are current Tesla owners.

Like the reservation holders in the first batch, they are being told that they will be able to take delivery in 4 weeks.

Tesla is still not offering any lease options, but they have in-house financing for 72 month at 2.74% APR with $5,000 down.

Electrek’s Take

Regular customer orders for Model 3 seem to be moving fast – or at least faster than with Model X back in late 2015.

The real question is what does it tell us about the state of Model 3 production?

Things certainly seem to be moving faster, but last official information is that Tesla still had an important bottleneck at Gigafactory 1 in Nevada that was limiting volume production.

Tesla hasn’t issued any updates and using those new batches of invites as an indicator would be speculation, but I think it’s looking good if you want my opinion.

We are likely going to have to rely on anecdotal evidence until Tesla updates delivery numbers after the end of the month.

Let’s end on a quick note for reservation holders: don’t panic if you don’t have an invite yet. Based on Tesla’s previous vehicle launches, they send them out in batches and it can take a while before everyone gets one. This is likely to be even more true with the insane number of reservations that Tesla received for Model 3.