Tesla Model 3: you can only select the colour and the wheels

The Tesla Model 3 configurator goes live towards the end of next month, and the initial spec of these early cars has been made deliberately simple: you simply choose what colour you want, and what sort of wheels.

Tesla boss Elon Musk today confirmed that when the car launches next month, you’ll be limited to what you can do on it. “This is critical to achieving a rapid production ramp,” he said. 

“The big mistake we made with the Model X – which was my responsibility – was way too much complexity right at the beginning,” he added. “That was very foolish. Going back to the launch of the Model S, Model S only had one configuration at the start of production. It had one configuration because that’s all we could do, not because we were really clever!

“And then Model X… it’s really an amazing product, but it has way too many cool things in it, that should have been rolled into version two and version three.

“We got over-confident, and created something great that will probably never be made again. And perhaps should not be,” he added. Top Gear agrees, Elon...

So, early Model 3 configurations will be simple, and as soon as this first version is worked out, Musk will work on rolling out other versions. The idea to kick off with a dual motor version has also been canned. “We thought we’d just doubled the probability of something going wrong, because they’re two different motor architectures.

“One motor is optimised for highway travel, and one is optimised for stop and go traffic. That’s too much complexity right off the bat,” he said, “so it’ll just be single motor to begin with. Then we’ll have the dual motor configuration, if we’re lucky, towards the end of this year, or early next year.”

And as we mentioned here, Musk is working on finding a location for another Gigafactory to help with Model Y production, which in turn would free up production space for the Model 3.

Musk also reckons that demand for the Model Y – scheduled to hit roads in 2019 – will outstrip even the demand for the Model 3. Which as you know, when slightly off-the-charts when it was first announced...