Tesla Inc investors, customers and fans got some much-anticipated news on the Model 3 timeline when chief executive officer Elon Musk announced that the mission-critical model passed all its regulatory requirements for production two weeks ahead of schedule.
“Expecting to complete” the first car on Friday, Musk wrote in a Twitter post.
The company is to hold a handover party for its first 30 customers of the Model 3 on July 28, he said in a separate post.
The Model 3, the company’s most affordable car yet, had been expected to begin production this month, but there had been little news on how the preparations at the company’s factory in Fremont, California, were progressing.
When a Twitter follower of Musk asked him last week to “please have mercy” and give more information on the release, he responded cryptically that he would offer “news on Sunday.”
Investors have pushed up shares of the Palo Alto, California-based company 69 percent this year in anticipation of the Model 3.
The company delivered 25,051 vehicles in the first quarter and aims to make 500,000 next year and 1 million in 2020.
The company now makes two all-electric models: the Model S sedan and the Model X sport utility vehicle.
The Model 3, which is slated to start at US$35,000 before options or incentives, is the culmination of Tesla’s 15-year quest to reach mainstream consumers with a smaller, more affordable electric car.
Tesla first unveiled the Model 3 in March last year at a late-night party at its design studio in Hawthorne, California.
It said last spring that 373,000 people had placed US$1,000 deposits for the vehicle and has not given an updated figure since.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last