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Tesla’s most basic Model 3 variant won’t be delivered until August ’22

Credit: Tesla

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Tesla’s most basic variant of the affordable Model 3 sedan is sold out nearly a year in advance. The Model 3 Standard Range+ is as basic as you can get with Tesla’s vehicles. It is the most affordable car available from Tesla, starting at $41,990. When ordering the sedan with its standard Aero wheels, orderers are now advised that the soonest delivery dates are set for August 2022.

The all-electric Model 3 sedan from Tesla was the company’s most popular vehicle for several years until the arrival of the Model Y crossover. However, the Model 3 Standard Range+ configuration is the most affordable option to those who are interested in driving a Tesla without breaking the bank. The car is now seeing delivery dates that are sitting exceptionally far out, ten months to be exact.

Tesla’s online Design Studio, the portion of the automaker’s website that allows potential owners to design their vehicles, now shows an estimated delivery for the Model 3 Standard Range+ with Aero wheels for August. Other more expensive car variations are available for delivery as soon as November, but the cheapest combination of the vehicle won’t be available until Q3 2022.

Credit: Tesla

Aero wheels are not the reason for the delayed delivery projections. The Model 3 Long Range All-Wheel-Drive also utilizes these wheels as the default option, but that vehicle is set for December deliveries.

Tesla has been dealing with an extensive backlog of orders over the past year. Demand for the company’s all-electric cars has seemed to skyrocket in 2021 as the transition to electrification continues to gain momentum heading into the final quarter of what has been a challenging year for the entire automotive industry. Derailed by semiconductor chip shortages and supply chain bottlenecks globally, the automotive industry has struggled to remain consistent with its manufacturing efforts. However, Tesla has been able to avoid severe delays in production and deliveries by staying vertically integrated and developing alternative options to the parts it could not obtain. For example, Tesla engineers have developed nineteen microcontroller variants that are helping the automaker avoid semiconductor bottlenecks.

The Model 3 Standard Range+ was the first Tesla vehicle to be sold out for the year. In August, Tesla changed the estimated delivery date to January, making the Model 3 completely sold out for 2021 in the United States.

Hopefully, upon the completion of Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas in Austin, the automaker can revise projected delivery dates for some variants of the Model 3, but it may be some time before that happens. Tesla plans to begin manufacturing at the facility with the Model Y. It is unknown when Tesla will launch Model 3 production at the Texas factory.

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Don’t hesitate to contact us with tips! Email us at tips@teslarati.com, or you can email me directly at joey@teslarati.com.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027

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Credit: Grok Imagine

Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”

SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.

It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.

Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.

Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:

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There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk reveals why Boring Co’s biggest East Coast project never happened

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(Credit: The Boring Company)

Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.

The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.

The Boring Company receives verbal ‘approval’ to build NY to DC Hyperloop tunnel

The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.

Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.

Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.

A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.

The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.

Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.

Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.

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There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.

The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk reminds everyone about Roadster’s true meaning

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Elon Musk addresses the crowd next to the new Tesla Roadster, which Tesla offers in Performance, Thrust and Rocket versions. (Image: Tesla/X)
Elon Musk addresses the crowd next to the new Tesla Roadster, which Tesla offers in Performance, Thrust and Rocket versions. (Image: Tesla/X)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Sunday to remind everyone that the Roadster’s true meaning is not about company growth or adding dollars to shareholders’ pockets. Sometimes, you just do things because you can.

Following the Roadster’s epic unveiling event last Thursday, skeptics and critics of the company or the project itself came out to say that the vehicle is a pointless project because it is not geared toward growing the company, delivering supreme margins for profitability, nor does it contribute to the big picture of Artificial/Super Intelligence.

But that’s just the thing: Roadster is not meant to be some shareholder dream; it’s meant to be a vehicle that people buy just because it is something awesome, unique, and the first of its kind.

Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds

Musk had to remind those who are skeptical about the Roadster’s importance to the company mission that while it is not a major contributor to Tesla’s long-term goals, it is something that is being built just because it can be:

“Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value. The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power, and mass to space. And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow. But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.”

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Musk has said on many occasions that Optimus would be the project that would make up the vast majority of Tesla’s value in the coming years.

Robotics will be a major focus of Tesla over the coming years, especially as Musk believes Optimus will enable work to be optional for humans and will enable what he calls “High Universal Income.”

Cybercab will be a passive income opportunity for owners, Musk and Tesla have said for a very long time, as a fleet of self-driving vehicles will operate within a ride-hailing Robotaxi service that won’t require a human driver to be present.

Tesla investors are more than enthusiastic about the company’s future projects, at least from a general consensus perspective. However, it is important to note that the Roadster is a fun and cool project that pushes the boundaries of what people thought was possible for an automobile.

What we saw last week was the first true example of a flying car, and despite the backlash about how it might not contribute to Tesla’s grand ambitions, it’s okay to have fun sometimes, too.

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