Tesla Model 3 sold out for first production year

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed via Twitter that orders for the new Model 3 won’t be delivered to customers until at least mid-2018 since the first 12 months production have already sold out.

The Tesla website changed the words 'Deliveries begin late 2017' to 'Delivery estimate for new reservations is mid-2018 or later' below the order button, meaning the change in delivery time applies to models ordered from here on. For cars ordered before this, the earlier delivery date still stands.

The US brand has received around half a million deposits for its Model 3, making it the company's biggest-selling product yet. It is thought that this high demand is the biggest contributor to the delayed delivery time, although Tesla is yet to confirm this. A staggering 2,76,000 deposits were put down on the Model 3 in the first 72 hours of the order books being opened, with 1,17,000 of those orders placed before the car had even been unveiled.

Unveiled at a launch event in California earlier this year, the Model 3 is the fourth all-electric model to come from Tesla and is the affordable car that Musk says he set out to build from the very beginning. Although exact specifications have not yet been confirmed, the five-seat mass-market EV is claimed, in its most basic form, to be capable of accelerating from 0-100kph in less than 6.0sec and to be able to eke out more than 402km from one charge.

At the car's launch, Musk said that no combustion-engined car of this size could offer as much cabin space. Thanks to the lack of a combustion engine, front-row passengers sit farther forward than normal, freeing up more space for those behind. The car also gets a single-pane panoramic sunroof and two boot compartments – one at the front and one at the back.

Musk has made some bold claims about safety, saying it has come first in the car’s development and adding that he expects the Model 3 to be awarded five stars in every safety category. All Model 3s will come with Tesla’s latest autopilot feature as standard. They will also have a tablet-style, dash-mounted infotainment system, much like that of the Model S.

The Model 3 will rival the likes of the BMW 3 Series, Mercedes-Benz C-Class and the Audi A4.