Coming in 2017: Tesla’s Model III

Tesla Motors, perhaps the world’s most notorious and accomplished all-electric vehicle manufacturer, announced plans to expand its model range. The Model III will be coming in 2017.

According to the company’s founder and CEO, Elon Musk, the Model III will be priced at a relatively affordable $35,000. This is roughly half the price of the Model S sedan. The stated pricing (as well as the name) positions the new Model III as a direct competitor to BMW’s 3-series.

Tesla’s popular Model S

One of the reasons for the $35,000 price is cheaper battery technology that will be made possible by Tesla’s upcoming Gigafactory. As Tesla itself says in its blog, “(t)he Gigafactory is designed to reduce cell costs much faster than the status quo and, by 2020, produce more lithium ion batteries annually than were produced worldwide in 2013.”

The Model III is actually Tesla’s fourth vehicle; it is scheduled to debut after the Model X seven-passenger crossover (half-car, half-SUV). The first two models, of course, are the sporty Roadster and the full-size Model S sedan.

Here’s a bit of a funny tidbit about the Model III: According to Elon Musk himself, the Model III was supposed to have been called the Model E. As musk himself said, “we had the Model S and X, we might as well have the E.”

Pretty cheeky, that Elon Musk.