The Tesla Model 3 is a battery electric powered car from the US American manufacturer Tesla. It was presented as a prototype at the end of March 2016 and is in production since July 2017. With 155,748 units, it became the world's best-selling electric car in 2018, ahead of the Nissan Leaf. It has also been available in Europe since February 2019.

History

The Model 3 was planned under the working title BlueStar and was to be called "Model E.". However, this name was no longer available for vehicles. Tesla sees Model 3 as the third and final step in its three-stage strategy to make electric cars suitable for mass production.

In the morning hours of 31 March 2016, long queues of waiting customers formed in front of Tesla sales outlets worldwide to reserve the car with a deposit of 1,000 US dollars or 1,000 euros without obligation. During the presentation of the car, it became known that in less than 24 hours, more than 115,000 reservations had already been received. After two days, the number rose to 276,000 vehicles, after one week to 325,000, which equated to an order value of 14 billion dollars for Tesla. For comparison: With 400,000 vehicles sold (cumulative), the Nissan Leaf is the most successful electric car on the world market to date (as of March 2019).

The sales price in the USA was supposed to be around 35,000 US dollars At the time of presentation, this corresponded to around 32,000 euros, not including any taxes (e.g. value added tax) or other levies incurred outside the USA.

Due to the high number of reservations, Tesla announced in May 2016 that it would significantly increase its production targets for the coming years. Three vehicles were presented at the product launch, two of which were test driven. In February 2017, production of prototype vehicles in their final form began, of which photos were published in April 2017.

In March 2017, Elon Musk announced that production was to start in July 2017 and that the company intended to produce 5,000 vehicles of the type per week by the end of 2017 and to increase this to 10,000 vehicles in February 2018. Production of the drive unit would take place at the Gigafactory in Nevada because there was not enough space at the Fremont plant.

Instead of extensive driver testing, Tesla relied on initial delivery to employees. In July 2017, the first units were handed over to employees. Production got off to a very slow start as the project progressed. 15 months after production started, the mark of 100,000 units built was reached.

It was not until the end of June 2018 that 5,000 Model 3s rolled off the production line within a week. In that week, Tesla produced 5031 Model 3 and 1913 Model S & X, as the company announced in its quarterly report for Q2 2018. This meant that production had increased by 55 percent compared to the first quarter.

In July 2018, there were still about 420,000 reservations to be processed According to Tesla's marketing department, the interest has grown organically. The product had not been advertised by Tesla. At the end of December 2019, Tesla began production of the Model 3 in its Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai/People's Republic of China.

Properties

The structure is made of steel and aluminium and is designed according to the standards for trucks, which means that the wagon should last 1,600,000 km (1 million miles).

The design is based on the Model S and classic saloons, the length corresponds to the BMW F30 (BMW 3 Series) or the Mercedes-Benz 205 seriesClass]. The car has four doors, five seats and two trunks (front and rear). As a special feature, similar to the model X, a very large glass panorama roof is permanently installed above the rear seats, which makes the rear boot opening correspondingly smaller.

According to Tesla, the Model 3 is prepared on the vehicle side for autonomous driving according to the SAE Level 5 standard. Today, level 3 is reached in good weather conditions. Only optical cameras, ultrasonic sensors and a radar sensor are installed as sensors. The system is not available in very poor visibility (heavy rain, snowfall). The additional function called "autopilot" by Tesla can be ordered as an option. Any further development of the functionality is installed in the delivered vehicles with a reloadable software.

The Model 3 does not have an instrument display behind the steering wheel, but a liquid crystal touch screen from LG with a diagonal of 38 cm (15 inches) mounted centrally on the dashboard. Since it could be a fully autonomous vehicle, the displays of speed etc. would no longer be of interest to the people inside the vehicle, commented Elon Musk on this design decision.

According to EPA documents, Model 3 will not feature the induction motor with squirrel-cage rotor previously used by Tesla, but three-phase synchronous motors with permanent excitation by rare earth magnets. To achieve a high magnetic flux density, the permanent magnets of the rotor are made of neodymium-iron-boron. In an asynchronous motor, the squirrel-cage rotor would become very hot during operation at continuous high power due to the non-increasable efficiency.

The inverter of the drive unit operates with 24 modules, each containing two MOSFETs designed for 650 V.

Since September 2019, vehicles for the US market have been equipped with the system for artificial driving noise that is legally required there.

Battery Technology

The accumulator pack used in Model 3 with the standard capacity of 50 kWh consists of 2976 individual cells (Type 2170), which are bundled into so-called "bricks" of 31 cells each. These bricks are located in four separate modules, with the two outer modules containing 23 bricks each and the two inner modules containing 25 bricks each. The "long-range version" delivered in 2018 with 74 kWh has 4416 cells The Model S with 85 kWh battery pack has 7,104 single cells (type 18650), divided into 16 bricks The cobalt content in the cathodes of the Li-ion cells used has been reduced to 2.8 percent. The state of the art was stated to be around 8 percent in 2018, and many manufacturers even stated more. For the coming cell generation Tesla does not want to use any more cobalt for his cells.

The expected mileage (life cycle) of the battery is stated by Tesla as 300,000-500,000 miles (1500 cycles) Tesla guarantees 8 years for Model 3 with standard or mid-range battery 100,000 miles (160,000 km) and with long-range battery 120,000 miles (192,000 km), whichever comes first, with at least 70% remaining battery capacity beyond the guarantee period.

Loading capacity

The Model 3 Longrange can charge with up to 625 A, which corresponds to 250 kW at 400 V battery voltage. The 350 kW CCS rapid chargers available in Europe in mid-2019 will only provide a maximum of 500 A with cooled cables, which limits the charging capacity to approx. 175 to 200 kW at battery voltages of 350 to 400 V (twice as much at 800 V as in the Porsche Taycan). In the USA, Tesla uses its own plugs and allows higher currents. On the widely used Tesla Supercharger version 2, the current is limited to 300 A and the power to 120 kW. With SuC V3, of which only a few are available so far, Model 3 can charge with up to 250 kW peak power, which is specified with a chargeable range of 120 kilometers in five minutes.

The European version can be charged at a 230-volt socket (max. 3 kW), a type 2 charging cable (max. 11 kW with three phases, e.g. wallbox) or a CCS charging station. The European Superchargers were equipped with an additional CCS plug for Model 3 in 2019. The use of the Superchargers with a Model 3 is subject to a charge ("pay-per-use"), but free kilometres can be purchased during discount campaigns.