If you did not order your Tesla Model 3, it might feel like you are the only one. In just the first weekend, Tesla got 276,000 orders. That is a pretty astounding number. It is even more impressive when you consider that the cars will not be delivered until late 2017, at the earliest. The number so overwhelmed Tesla that CEO Elon Musk (@elonmusk) said that Tesla might need to build a second factory.
That is so many orders that not everyone will even get the $7,500 U.S. electric car tax credit which phases out at 200,000 sales.
That is so many orders, that it would put the Model 3 in the top 10 sales for 2015 – with all those sales coming in one weekend.
At $1,000 deposit per order, that is a nice bit of capital investment as well. Not to mention the potential eventual booking of close to $10 Billion (yes, with a “B”) in sales based on an average sales price of $35,000 for every Model S. That is the very definition of a game changer for Tesla (unless of course, it destroys Tesla first), if not the industry itself.
This is not how it is supposed to go. When gas prices are low, gas guzzlers are supposed to sell. Market forces are supposed to push out more SUVs and trucks and fewer electric and hybrid cars. Is this truly a turning point? Well, with headlines recently like “Tesla stations in NYC on verge of outnumbering gas stations,” perhaps the times they are a changing. Perhaps regardless of gas prices, electric and hybrid vehicles will continue to be a larger percentage of overall sales. Especially if you can market those vehicles as successfully as products like the iPhone are marketed.