The company has so far not said much about the car except that it will built on an all-new platform and that the target retail price is around $35,000. The car’s range has been estimated at around 200 miles, about a third less than the 265-mile range of the 85kWh Model S.
If the Model 3 can actually achieve that range at that price, it will top the $35,000 Volkswagen e-Golf (range 118 miles), the around $40,000 Kia Soul EV (124 miles), as well as the $41,350 BMW i3 and the around $42,000 Mercedes B-class electric (124 miles).
A lot depends on whether Tesla can get its $5 billion battery Gigafactory built and producing batteries that eventually will reduce the price of the batteries for the company’s cars by 30%. The Gigafactory eventually could supply enough batteries to power 500,000 Tesla vehicles annually.
If Tesla can really double the range of comparably priced electric vehicles, it could have a solid winner here. That still does not translate into massive sales numbers. In 2013, just 22,362 battery electric vehicles were sold in the United States during the first six months of the year. That number is up 15.6% through June of this year to 25,844.
Tesla stock traded down about 0.4% in the early afternoon Wednesday, at $218.65 in a 52-week range of $104.50 to $265.00.
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