Tesla Motors today outed its newest vehicle plans, a smaller car called the Model 3, that Auto Express reports is designed squarely to take on BMW's 3 series. According to the report which Tesla confirmed today the vehicle will be 20 percent smaller than the Model S, and go more than 200 miles on a charge. The Model 3 will be properly unveiled in 2016, with sales beginning the following year, Auto Express says.
The Model 3 will actually be the company's fourth car, and is set to come after Tesla's Model X. That vehicle was unveiled at an event in California in 2012, and is headed to early buyers later this year. It's a "crossover" that falls somewhere between a sedan and a sport utility vehicle, and fits up to seven passengers. The company originally planned to begin building it last year, but that timetable was pushed back.
In an interview with Auto Express, Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk said the name for the Model 3 stemmed back to a legal entanglement with Ford, which threatened to sue Tesla over a trademark for "Model E."
"We were going to call it model E for a while and then Ford sued us saying it wanted to use the Model E I thought this is crazy, Ford's trying to kill sex! So we'll have to think of another name," Musk said. "The new model is going to be called Model III, we'll have three bars to represent it and it'll be S III X!"
