Today at 8PM PDT (11PM EST), Tesla livestreamed the unveiling of the Tesla Model Y and what an exciting event it was! Look at this crowd…

Elon said that up to today, they’ve made 550,000 cars and in 12 months, they will have made over a million vehicles. 11 years ago when “electric cars was thought to be a stupid idea” they made 1 car (the first Tesla Roadster). They had to break this mindset and make something for mass-production that could compete with gasoline cars, looked better than gasoline cars and was just as competitively priced – so they designed and created the Model S (‘S’ for “sedan”). From there, they designed:

• Model X (‘X’ for crossover SUV), the best electric SUV
• Model 3 (originally aiming for ‘E’ but “Ford killed SEX” says Elon because of the naming trademark infringement!), the cheapest electric car in their lineup that doesn’t skimp on performance
• New Roadster, the fastest car in the world that can do 0-100 km/h in 2.1 seconds (60 mph in 1.9 seconds)

Afterwards, Elon highlights how far they’ve come in terms of production and scale through their new gigafactories. He also highlighted that “2019 is the year for the Solar Roof and Powerwall”. It has so far been delayed because the power cells were needed for the Model 3 production issues.

In 2010, there were no high-power superchargers. Today they have 1400 Supercharger stations and 12000 Superchargers in 36 countries and have introduced the Supercharger v3, delivering up to 1600 km range / hr (1000 mi / hr).

And finally, the moment we were all waiting for, the…

MODEL Y

Driving out, the Model Y looks like a cute hatchback version of the Model 3. It has very similar design features with a big widescreen in the middle, no other user interfaces and a nice panoramic glass roof. A big difference, it has 3 rows of seats instead of 2 and can therefore fit 6 people comfortably and 7 max. Surprisingly, it comes in at very similar prices to the model 3, $47,000 for the first long range models and $39,000 for a standard version by Spring 2021. See other specs and full range/pricing below:

Other Key Specs

• 0 – 60 mph in 3.5 seconds
• Very low centre of gravity which allows for great handling and tight turns
• 300 miles range true useful range

Elon ends the formal presentation with “… and there you have the S3XY presentation”! Everyone there is then allowed to take a closer look and take a test drive if they’d like. I wish I was there! Let me know in the comments if you’d consider the Model Y over the other models :).