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American automaker Tesla has released its first mass-market electric car—the Model 3.
Sold for $35,000 each, Model 3 is the cheapest car in Tesla’s range of products. Formerly, Tesla only manufactured luxury cars, which were sold in limited numbers for at least $90,000. Despite Model 3’s relatively lower price, the five-seater car boasts several high-tech features. It is equipped with self-driving hardware like cameras and sensors, as well as safety features that can help it avoid collisions with obstacles along its way.
Model 3 also has a touchscreen-integrated dashboard. In place of physical buttons, its dashboard has a 15-inch tablet where passengers can access the settings. The car also features supercharge and can run 215 miles on a single charge.
The electric car is Tesla’s first step toward reaching a wider audience. Since Model 3’s announcement in March 2016, Tesla has received over 400,000 pre-orders for the electric car. However, during Tesla’s handover party last July 28, only 30 customers on the waiting list received their Model 3 units. The rest of the pre-orders are expected to be delivered by 2018.
Because of the high demand for Model 3, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has high hopes for its success. Tesla is set to increase its production to 20,000 cars per month by December and is expecting to produce 500,000 units a year starting 2018. Musk said that the company aims to help the environment by promoting electric cars.
Sharing Tesla’s goal to promote environment-friendly cars, Swedish automaker Volvo also announced its plans to release electric car models starting 2019. Volvo CEO Håkan Samuelsson promised that in the future, all Volvo cars will run on electric motors instead of petroleum.