Tesla has received close to 400,000 pre-orders for its mass-market electric vehicle Model 3. The company had said that one person cannot reserve more than two units of the vehicle. However, analyst Anton Wahlman announced that he had successfully reserved 20 Model 3 cars, ten times the limit set by the company. Wahlman had nothing to lose because the deposits are fully refundable.
Only 0.2% Model 3 pre-orders duplicate over the limit
Yahoo! Finance too tried to figure out if one can indeed pre-order more than two cars. In just a few minutes, they had reserved four cars by submitting multiple orders on separate forms. It indicated that some of the 400,000 reservations reported by the company could have been placed by fans or speculators to inflate the numbers.
As soon as the news reached Tesla founder Elon Musk, he sprang to action. He tweeted out that a system scan revealed only 0.2% of pre-orders were duplicates over the limit. And all the excess orders would be cancelled. He also added that only about 5% of reservations are for two cars, so there is little chance for speculation. Musk’s tweets should reassure Tesla observers about the integrity of Model 3 reservation numbers.
@MrBoylan System scan detected only 0.2% of orders with same email and physical address. Those have been purged.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 30, 2016
Some customers may lose patience
The biggest problem for Tesla is too much demand. Elon Musk has officially said that Model 3 pre-orders were much higher than his expectations, and the company would have to rethink its production plans. The EV maker won’t start shipping the car until late 2017, assuming there would be no delays. Some pre-order customers may not get their cars until 2018 or 2019. Analysts fear that such customers may end up losing patience.
The Model 3 promises 215 miles of range, and will have a starting price tag of $35,000. Elon Musk confirmed last week that the Model 3 will also get a Ludicrous mode that enables Tesla cars to go from zero to 60mph in just 2.8 seconds. The feature isn’t available as a standard, but customers can purchase it as an upgrade on their Model S P90D and the Model X P90D for $2,500.
