Tesla Model S: First customer cars in June

Tesla Model S - deliveries start in June

Tesla Motors will deliver the first customer Tesla Model S cars to customer in the US in June as Tesla finally hits the make or break point.

The Tesla Model S has been a long time coming, but Tesla now say that the first Model S cars will start to arrive with customers in the US in June, slightly ahead of schedule – which must be a first for Tesla.

The first 1,000 deliveries will be of the range-topping Signature Series cars which come with the big 85kWh battery pack and lots of toys and cosmetic embellishments, but after that it’s regular Model S deliveries, although the cheaper versions with smaller battery packs and lower range won’t arrive until later.

Tesla say they will deliver 5,000 Model S this year with production ramping up to 20,000 on 2013. So far, Tesla has orders for 10,000 cars.

This is the crunch point for Tesla. They are changing from a Silicon Valley toy in to a real car makers, and a car maker with a real chance of delivering a game-changing car in the US with a sensible price point and the only really sensible use of EV technology – the range extender.

But it all depends on how the Model S performs in the real world. Will it be properly bolted together and will it be reliable? Will it be the real world personification of the exchange between Bill Gates and GM? For those who don’t remember, Bill Gates said of GM: “If General Motors had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.”

The riposte from GM was clever and worth repeating. They said that if we were all driving cars made by Microsoft that:

Will Tesla’s ‘Silicon Valley meets Detroit’ Model S see GM’s predictions come true? We’ll know soon enough.

By Cars UK