Surprise at Geneva Motor Show: A Look At the Tesla Model 3
Tesla was not officially in the Geneva Motor Show, but there was a Model 3 on display, a car India will likely get.
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Tesla was not officially part of the Geneva Motor Show 2018. And yet, there were not one, but two Teslas at the show.
While a fast-charging company had a Model X on display, what was more interesting was the Tesla Model 3 – that hasn't officially made its way to the European market yet – being displayed at the show.
The Tesla Model 3 was flown in by a US-based company named CareSoft that does benchmarking for automakers. The company can blueprint any car and competitors are willing to pay for their services.
The Model 3 is officially on sale in the US, and this gave auto enthusiasts a chance to get their hands on one. Needless to say, it was hard to get a leg in sideways, as people were constantly crowding around this relatively "affordable" Tesla.
Well, from all the hype surrounding the Teslas, I for one was pretty excited to get to actually touch and feel one. However, I wasn't very impressed. The car has fairly average fit and finish (it does not feel premium). In fact, the spartan interiors do not do it justice. Now, here's where a concept like Tata's E-Vision electric sedan actually has a better interior!
It has a large fixed glass roof, plain dashboard dominated by a large 15-inch display, which is the only piece of instrumentation in the car. The gear stalk is on the steering wheel and seems borrowed from Mercedes. It has LED lighting, but looks quite plain.
Also Read: Tesla’s Coming Soon to India? Don’t Be So Sure
The Tesla Model 3 bookings opened last year and anyone could book one for as low as $1,000 (Rs 70,000). Tesla also announced that the Model 3 would be the car that the company would enter India in 2019, leading to many Indians also booking the car. Tesla has clocked over 325,000 bookings already for it, but deliveries have only started in the US.
The Tesla Model 3 comes in two versions – standard with a range of 350 km per charge and the long range with a range of 500 km per charge.
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