What will happen when a $35K Tesla arrives?
Tesla's Model 3 Will Be Its Best-Selling Car--Despite
Musk's Failure To Work Sex Into Name
The all-electric Tesla Model S sedan.
Tesla-watchers and first-adopters alike last week were
agog with news that by 2017 the electric automaker will make a new electric
sedan named the Model 3.
The Model 3 will actually be Tesla’s fourth-ever model
line (that’s if you count the tiny Roadster and the forthcoming Model X SUV)
but the company considers the 3 its third-generation vehicle because the S and
X are built on the same platform.
Which brings up an interesting point of note: Founder
Elon Musk had cleverly wanted to name this car the E, so that the acrostic of
his models could spell S-E-X. Ford, alas, didn’t take to Musk’s style of humor
and, according to him, threatened to sue Tesla over naming rights. Apparently
Ford thought the name was too close to its naming scheme for the admittedly important-to-automotive-history
Model A and Model T.
“Ford tried to kill sex,” Musk joked at Tesla’s 2014
annual shareholder meeting.
It may have killed SEX this time but I have a feeling the
Model 3 (S3X isn’t too far off, come to think it) will catapult Tesla into
mainstream car culture in a sudden, historic and irreversible way when it
debuts. All told, Tesla sold more than 22,000 Model S cars in 2013, a number
that will pale in comparison to what it can do with the Model 3.
For starters, it’s cheap—$35,000 is inexpensive for an
electric car and for any car made by what I’d consider a luxury brand. To
combine both—a green power train with creature comforts often reserved for
Porsche or Audi —for less than $40,000 will prove a major breakthrough in both
the automotive and technology industries. Most of that savings is due to
improved economies of scale enabled by Tesla’s planned $5 billion Gigafactory,
which will reduce the cost of its battery packs by an estimated 30 percent. In
fact, Musk says, by 2020 Tesla will be shipping 500,000 cars a year—10 times
the nearly 20,000 it put out last year.
Furthermore, the Model 3 is a manageable size. It sits in
the sweet spot between hulking sedan (think Mercedes-Benz S Class) and sport
sedan (think BMW 1-Series). It’ll come in roughly 20% shorter than the Model S
and gain extended range from the weight savings gained—200 miles to a charge is
the estimate—while going head-to-head with something like the size of, say, the
handsome BMW 3-Series. That suits the American buying demographic perfectly,
because while crossover sales are still growing the quickest of any model size,
sales of midsize sedans remain a strong and ever-present constant.
That athletic BMW brings up my third point—the Model 3
dutifully maintains the good-looks precedent set by the Model S, which is no small thing to today’s
intensely image-conscious consumers. It’s telling that Model S sales are coming
at the expense of BMW, Mercedes, Lexus and Porsche: In the first half of last
year California alone saw more than 4,700 Model S registrations, and nationally
Tesla matched total combined sales of the Lexus LS, Audi A8 and Porsche
Panamera . Indeed, it’s telling that Model S competitors are fancy whips from
historic brands, not other green energy cars like the Toyota Prius, Chevy Volt
or Nissan LEAF.
In stark contrast to the Prius, the Model S is proving
that alternative-fuel cars can look just as sexy as sports cars. Should look
just as sexy as sports cars.
Even if they don’t actually spell out the word.
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