A recent post on the Tesla Motors Club forum concerning the Model 3 — detailing a conversation with a purported Tesla insider — has revealed what many of us have already been expecting. That the Tesla Model 3 will look very similar to the Model S sedan, just smaller.
Here’s the full comment in question, courtesy of “MrJones390“:
And he said the following:
-Model 3 looks very similar to Model S, just smaller and without luxury features like leather seats
-Cost saving is due to Gigafactory, smaller battery and economy features
-Possible release of smaller, stripped down Model X at same time (not sure if name is Model Y)
We’ll see if this is true next month!
This isn’t really surprising (if true). Why take a gamble when you know that by going with the basic Model S look you’re going to please most potential buyers? That said, this does seem to fly in the face of what CEO Elon Musk said previously about the Model 3 “not looking like anything else on the road.” (That may not be the exact quote, I don’t have it here in front of me. But it’s the general gist.)
As far as the possible release of a crossover at the same time, I remain highly skeptical of that. And Musk has seemingly shot that possibility down in the recent past as well, so it seems unlikely. Perhaps the comment about a stripped down Model X was in reference to something else?
The official unveiling of the Model 3 is now less than a month away, though, so I suppose that we’ll know if any of this is true soon enough.
→ Related: Tesla CTO: Model 3 To Feature “Next Generation” Technology
Image by Zachary Shahan | EV Obsession | CleanTechnica (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A smaller and cheaper Model S? Good. 🙂 Those happen to be my two main reservations about the Model S…
Haha, you + ~1 million other people. 😀
That’s excellent news, if it’s true about the design, it’ll make the gm bolt look stupid. Would like the leather seat option though, can we at least get the option to add them? I have leather seats in my golf for god’s sake…
With the comparable range and price of the Bolt and model 3. It will be interesting to see how free charging of the model 3 will effect total annual sales between the two manufactures.
It’s not just free charging, but speed and placement. 120kW vs 50kW, covers much of US for nicely spaced chargers vs mostly cities. If they came out at the same time, Model 3 will stomp on Bolt, but Bolt will have couple of years head start. Still, Bolt will take longest to charge (~1hr to 80%) among all of DCFC EV. Even miles added per minute is the same as something half the price like SparkEV.
Model S shape is pretty hard to top without doing some “crazy” designs. Maybe that’s what Musk had in mind before Falcon wing issues. For low cost, it would make sense to make smaller S. It’ll increase efficiency, and maybe they can use smaller battery to achieve comeptitive range. Well, here’s to hoping for more efficient design.
http://sparkev.blogspot.com/2016/01/mass-market-ev-hoping-for-tesla.html
Good points to be sure. Tesla CTO has gone on the record stating that the primary technical challenge for Tesla is to make the cars cheaper. I for one don’t need a drastically designed car. If the range, the performance, and the car as a platform for the latest technology can be made for a $35,000 the car will be a huge success. And people will continue to associate great electric cars (hell great cars period) with Tesla.
I can’t believe that Tesla, Apple, and others can keep their products secret until their release. But my guess is if it doesn’t turn out to be a 2/3 scale S … which will make it look a lot like a Mazda 3… it will look like the Mercedes B / Chevy Bolt / old Toyota Matrix.