Tesla has been slowly ramping up production of the Tesla Model 3 and to date around 10,000 Model 3 sedans have been delivered, but there’s one big note – most of the Model 3 deliveries had price tags in the $50k range. Where’s the $35,000 Tesla Model 3 that Elon Musk promised when the Model 3 was revealed? Well it looks like the cheaper Model 3 isn’t arriving until the end of 2018.
Tesla is now reporting that the base Tesla Model 3 won’t arrive until later this year, which means it will arrive after the new dual-motor all-wheel drive Model 3. The dual-motor Model 3 will arrive by mid-2018.
The bigger issue is that those buyers that were waiting for the base Model 3 will most likely miss out on the $7,500 federal EV tax credit. The credit gets reduced after an automaker sells more than 200,000 electric vehicles, which Tesla is expected to surpass by the time the base Model 3 deliveries begin. Once the 200k mark is passed, the credit is reduced by half to $3,750 for up a year. After the year mark passes, the credit is reduced again to $1,875 for an additional two quarters.
Source: Tesla
