Musk Shows Off First Tesla Model 3 on Twitter

CARS.COM — Tesla CEO Elon Musk had promised the first production Model 3 would be built Friday, but it was not until early Sunday that we saw photos of the shiny black electric sedan via Twitter.

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It’s our first look at the first production version of the new $35,000-to-start entry-level luxury sedan — and it’s little different from the preproduction models already displayed.

“Production unit 1 of Model 3 is now built and going through final checkout. Pics soon,” Musk tweeted on Saturday evening. Then, early Sunday, came a pair of photos of his proverbial new baby, including the color image above.

First Production Model 3 pic.twitter.com/TCa2NSUNI3

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 9, 2017

And it will be his baby. Musk tweeted that Tesla board member Ira Ehrenpreis had reserved the first car but was giving it to the CEO as a 46th birthday present.

The rest of the first 30 cars will be delivered July 28, according to Musk’s tweets, followed by 100 in August as production is slowly ramped up, and 1,500 in September. Musk said 20,000 a month is possible by December.

Details of the car remain limited beyond a 215-mile range and $35,000 starting price, and a configurator had not gone up on the Tesla site as of today. The initial cars will be rear-wheel drive only and have limited configurations, according to Musk comments at the recent annual shareholders meeting. Given the large number of reservations for the Model 3, shoppers placing new reservations now for the car are not expected to get one until mid-2018.