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Everything Elon Musk Is Saying About the Tesla Model 3

By
Hilary Brueck
Hilary Brueck
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By
Hilary Brueck
Hilary Brueck
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April 4, 2016, 10:22 AM ET
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What will the new Tesla Model 3 really look like when it hits the road? CEO Elon Musk has a few colorful descriptions.

@HBL_Cosmin Wait until you see the real steering controls and system for the 3. It feels like a spaceship.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2016

Musk took to Twitter on Sunday night for a little brainstorm party about what will be the company’s newest and cheapest electric car yet, which is set to debut at the end of 2017. Reservations for the new Model 3, revealed last week in California, have already surpassed 276,000 orders.

Now Tesla just has to build the thing.

If all the eager reservation holders end up cashing in for their new electric cars, that would translate to more than $10 billion in new Tesla sales. Tesla shares are soaring on the news, up from a 12-month low in February, Reuters reports.

But even as the $1,000 reservations continue to pour in to Tesla, the day when those customers can actually purchase and sit inside their own cars is a ways off. The very first Model 3 owners probably won’t have one in their driveway until at least 2018. Many more of the reservation holders will likely have to wait years before they can actually get behind the wheel of their own electric Model 3, as production at Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory, the new spot where the company hopes to eventually churn out 500,000 batteries a year, is still ramping up.

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Musk explains when the new car does arrive, it’s going to have a steering wheel like a spaceship, a backseat comfortable enough for camping out, and enough trunk room to plunk your bike in the back.

@CmaxVs Only way to get enough rear passenger headroom was to move the rear roof cross-car support beam. A bike will still fit no problem.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2016

@_amwolo_ They can. Will be great for road trips and camping

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2016

The Model 3 is Tesla’s first mass-market electric car, with a base price set at $35,000. But for now, the company’s still (literally) sketching out the details of just how the car will work and look.

Model 3 design sketches pic.twitter.com/P5ucOBRUZ7

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2016

Musk teases there are even more features to come.

And, of course, it will have more cowbells.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2016

Musk promises the car maker will be announcing more about how the car works during the second phase of the Model 3 reveal, which will probably come much closer to when the first batch of the cars are ready to roll off the lot.

So while hundreds of thousands of potential customers line up for a chance to buy the luxury lookalike car, Sunday’s Twitter session was a reminder the car is still very much in prototype mode for now with more changes (and cowbells?) in the works.

Signing off from impromptu Twitter AMA. Thanks for the suggestions. Btw, we really will have more cow bells.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 4, 2016

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