The Tesla Model 3 has entered production and the $35,000 affordable electric car passed all key safety tests in the US. Tesla aims to build 5,000 cars per week by the end of this year and double production in 2018. Those who put down a deposit now will not get their car until next year.
Tesla has not said how many people have put down $1,000 refundable deposits for the Model 3, but the company’s Chief Executive Elon Musk said people who put down a deposit now would not get a car until the end of 2018.
The firm’s last new vehicle, the Model X SUV, was delayed nearly 18 months. Musk said the Model 3 is much simpler to make but 14-year-old Tesla has no experience in producing and selling vehicles in high volumes.
Until recently, Tesla owned the market for fully electric vehicles that can go 200 miles or more on a single charge. However, this is changing; GM beat Tesla to the mass market with the Chevrolet Bolt, a $36,000 car that goes 238 miles per charge.
Audi plans to introduce an electric sport utility vehicle (SUV) with 300 miles of range next year.
Tesla Model 3 passes key test, enters production
Tesla Model 3 passes key test, enters production
Price cuts drive sales of Saudi-owned electric car
- Lucid delivers more vehicles than expected as it prepares to launch luxury new Gravity SUV
RIYADH: The majority Saudi-owned electric car maker Lucid delivered more vehicles than expected in the past three months as price cuts helped boost demand.
The company delivered 2,394 cars from April to June 30, above analysts’ predictions of 1,940.
Lucid produced 3,838 vehicles in the first six months of 2024 and needs to make more than 5,162 cars by end of the year to meet its annual output forecast of 9,000. It made 8,428 cars in 2023.
“I think at this point everything is shaping for them to achieve that,” said Andres Sheppard, senior equity analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald. Lucid will produce and deliver more cars in the second half of the year because of the usual seasonal effects on the industry, he said.
Demand for electric vehicles has grown more slowly than expected pace in the past year, under pressure from high borrowing costs, economic uncertainties and consumer preference for hybrid alternatives.
Lucid and the market leader Tesla have responded by slashing prices and offering incentives such as cheaper financing options. Lucid, which is 60-per-cent owned by the Public Investment Fund, the Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, cut the price of its flagship Air model by 10 percent in February.
Its new Gravity SUV model, a rival for Tesla's Model X, goes into production this year and will cost about $80,000.
