First Tesla Model 3 goes to Elon Musk as a birthday gift

Last July 3rd, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors announced on Twitter that the first 30 Tesla Model 3s will be delivered earlier to customers earlier than they have expected. He even added that the first ever model will be ready on Friday, July 7th.

We did not get an update over the weekend whether it was finished or not, but now, the company has confirmed that the first Tesla Model 3 has been built, and is just going through a final checkout.

Unsurprisingly, the new owner of the #0001 is the CEO himself. He did explain that to get the rights to have the first model, you have to be the first person to make a full deposit. He also told the Brad Sams, the guy that asked who the lucky owner of the Model 3 is, that it was Ira Ehrenpreis who had the rights as he was the very first person who paid the full deposit. But Ehrenpreis gave the rights to Musk as his 46th birthday present. The number one Tesla Model 3 is dressed up in a black exterior finish, as seen on Musk’s post.

There are a lot of conversations on Twitter between Musk and his followers. A certain Drew Olanoff had asked if Musk gets all the first production models of all Tesla cars, and he responded that he has the first models of the Roadster and the X, but not the Model S.

Now, you are probably wondering who the lucky owner of the first Model S is, if not Musk. It is actually Steve Jurvetson, a Tesla board member. He was able to gain the rights as he whipped out a cheque from his wallet and filled it out during a Tesla board meeting to get the Model S. After which, Musk responded to him with “I guess you get the first car”.

When the first 30 models roll off the production line, the company plans to hold a “handover party” for the first 30 customers on the 28th of July. By August, the company is expecting 100 cars, and by September more than 1500 should be ready, before hitting the 20,000 goal in December.

The Tesla Model 3 will be the company’s first mass market car, and is also supposed to be the most affordable electric vehicle they have built, with a starting price of $35,000 (£27,100). That price tag is almost half the price of the company’s next cheapest model.

Tesla’s strategy of transitioning from producing low-volume luxury electric cars, to making mass-market vehicles has made the company’s share price fluctuate. Last December, it doubled when investors backed Musk’s strategy, but this has fallen back in June.