Model 3 Delay News Irks Tesla

Tesla flag (Credit: Tesla Motors )

Inside EVs and several other big automotive publications like Car and Driver recently picked up a story about how the Tesla Model 3 is going to be delayed in its production until 2018 instead of 2017. Lately, whenever just about anything happens with the electric automaker, word spreads quickly. As they say, bad news spreads faster, and that seems to be the case this time. The only problem is that the news is apparently not true.

It’s easy to see how so many news outlets believed that the Model 3 has been delayed. After all, how many times was the Model S delayed? How many times has the Model X been delayed? Tesla has a history of production delays, plain and simple, which made the news that much more credible-sounding.

Even better, Inside EVs broke the story using an official Tesla document. What better source to use than the horse’s mouth? The document was included as a slide for a conference the automaker recently attended in Washington, D.C. After running the story, Inside EVs says that Tesla reached out and communicated that the slide wasn’t accurate.

Some people are going to think that Tesla is just playing damage control and that some sort of a conspiracy is going on. The company can do no right in the view of various individuals, so this situation will give them another reason to try tearing it apart. Apparently those people haven’t worked in a company where a mistake was made, even on a slide for a really important meeting.

The 2018 date was supposed to show when “full production” of the Model 3 will be underway. Limited production is still slated for the latter part of 2017, beginning the flow of more budget-friendly Teslas. To be fair, there’s still a strong likelihood that the vehicle will be delayed at least once, if history is to repeat itself at all.