Tesla Motors' mass market electric sedan, the Model 3 has got a dream start in April 2016 with nearly 3.5 lakh bookings with hours after unveil. The number then grew to over 5 lakh by the time company started deliveries in July 2017. Reports claims the Model 3 fetches an average of 1,800 new orders a day.
While all these stats are impressive for Tesla, about 63,000 people have cancelled their Model 3 preorders according to CEO Elon Musk, reports Recode. During Tesla's quarterly earnings call Musk said "Those cancellations occurred over the course of more than a year."
The reason is nothing to do with the car but the mounting waiting period. If you book a Model 3 now, you are supposed to wait 12 to 18 months to get behind the steering wheel. A new order will get their vehicle only by end of 2018 or early 2019.
Elon Musk justified the cancellation by saying "It's like if you're a restaurant and you're serving hamburgers and there's like an hour and a half wait for hamburgers, do you really want to encourage more people to order more hamburgers?"
Tesla has produced only around 50 of the Model 3 cars so far, including 20 for testing purposes. First batch of 30 units has been delivered to customers on July 28. Accordimg to Musk, Tesla is planning to roll out 100 units of Model 3 in August and it will be increased to over 1,500 units by September-end. Musk is optimistic that Tesla will be able to scale up production to 20,000 Model 3 cars per month by 2017-end.
Tesla Motors has priced the Model 3 at $35,000 (Rs 23 lakh). A longer-range version of the car is priced at $44,000 (Rs 28.28 lakh) and will drive 310 miles (500 km) on a single charge.
Source: Recode