Having been threatened with legal action by the folks at Ford, Tesla has decided to go ahead with a name change for its $35,000 EV that some might argue has actually made matters even worse.
Tesla has its hopes pinned on eventually releasing an all-electric vehicle that at least some of the general population can afford. Not that $35,000 is even close to the car-buying budget of the average America, but it’s still a hell of an improvement on what’s been put out by Musk and Co. so far.
No launch dates have yet been confirmed, but what we can now reveals is that the ‘affordable’ EV from the segment’s undisputed leader will be called Tesla Model 3. We’d come to know it up until now as the Model E, but apparently Ford threw a bit of a tantrum when the announcement was first made and it seems Tesla didn’t want to ruffle those particular feathers.
It apparently all came down to how the name sounded a bit too similar to Ford’s historic Model T – exactly why they reckon Model 3 makes any difference at all is a bit of a mystery, but there you go.
The name for the upcoming auto was confirmed by Tesla via the firm’s officially Twitter account as seen below:
As for the rest of the details on the project, all we’ve heard to date is that the sub-$35,000 EV will be able to run for around 200 miles on a single charge and will feature an overall design language that’s at least similar to that of the Model S.
Release-wise we could be waiting some time as it’s been confirmed that the Model 3 will not hit the market before the Tesla Model X SUV, which for the time being at least is slated for a 2015 rollout.