Fans of EVs, as well as fans of BMW, have been watching what happens with Tesla’s latest cars quite closely. When the Model 3 was first announced, Tesla received about a bajillion pre-orders, all of which were ordered before anyone ever saw the production-ready car. That’s a bit unheard of. Imagine if BMW sold a few hundred thousand pre-orders of the X2 just from the Concept that debuted last year. That’s what it’s like.
Now, though, Tesla’s enigmatic owner, Elon Musk, recently tweeted out a few photos of the new production-ready Tesla Model 3. And it looks like a Tesla.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 9, 2017
Like Apple, there isn’t much variance in Tesla’s product design. This is likely intentional so as to create a brand design language, and works really well in the mobile phone industry, but it creates a lack of excitement or emotion in the automotive world. Design is important when it comes to cars, especially electric cars because when everything is electric, only design and emotion will be the differences in cars.
Now, it doesn’t look bad. It just looks a bit bland. Take the Tesla badges away and this design could be the new Toyota Camry. It’s just not that visually interesting at all. While the same can be said for the Model S, at least that car has great proportions and looks luxurious. The Model 3, with its lift-back tailgate and bubble rear, looks bloated and sort of odd.
As we’ve seen before, that blandness is continued on the inside, where the only visually interesting part of the cabin is the monstrously large infotainment screen that cantilevers off the dashboard. Aside from that, it again could be mistaken for a load Camry on the inside.
Although, it’s what lies underneath the skin that’s important. With over 200 miles of claimed range, 0-60 mph in the mid-5 second range and Level 3 autonomy, the Model 3 will be one of the most impressive EVs on the market when it finally debuts, if not the most impressive. And at a claimed price of around $35,000 (before tax incentives), it’s very competitively priced.
While I tend to mock the Model 3 for its blandness, it will be a very successful car, when it finally makes its appearance on the market. It offers a lot of EV for the money and will be very tough competition for the BMW 330e and future BMW 3 Series electric. We don’t know exactly when it will debut but these tweets shows it’s at least in production form.