Tesla confirmed having received over 400,000 Model 3 reservations since its unveiling in March 2016, but after adjusting for a few cancellations and a bunch of pre-orders removed under suspicions that they were duplicates, the automaker updated the number last month to 373,000 Model 3 reservations.
The interest is higher than Tesla or else expected, which is why the company updated its production ramp up plans to 500,000 vehicles in 2018 (Model S, X and 3 combined) instead of in 2020, but even then, CEO Elon Musk said that someone would need to place a reservation soon in order to get a Model 3 by the end of 2018 – implying that it is virtually sold out from its expected launch in Q4 2017 to the end of 2018.
Also, in the US, people will want to get theirs early because the credit drops in half once Tesla sells 200,000 cars of any type.
It makes your place in the Model 3 reservation queue especially important. So far Tesla has been only issuing non-sequential reservation numbers which don’t mean anything as to where you are in line and the company said that the Model 3 will ship (or more precisely will be available for configuration) based on when you pre-ordered it, but now we might have a way for you to have a better idea of where you stand in the queue.
To be fair, Tesla’s reservation process for the Model 3 is quite complex. Even though there’s no Signature version (limited edition), like there was for the S and X, current Tesla owners are said to have priority in the queue, as well as (which is a first at the company) and even SpaceX employees.
Those factors, combined with Tesla’s plan to deliver vehicles in batches based on regions starting with the west coast then expanding east, make the process difficult to predict and if Tesla says to base your expectations on when you placed your reservation – that’s probably your best bet.
With this said, if are among the 373,000+ people who placed a reservation.
