Tesla Opens Model 3 Orders To Everyone, Gets Rid Of Reservations

For the past two years, Tesla’s relatively affordable Model 3 electric car required an invitation and a reservation from prospective buyers. As of Monday, however, those with the financial resources and patience to wait for a delivery can get a Tesla Model 3, automotive news website Electrek first reported.

Model 3 Online Design Studio, which allows potential Tesla buyers to choose which model they want to order, will now be open to the public, thus eliminating the requirement for an invitation or reservation, which it did in years past.

The catch is that in order to ensure a Model 3 delivery buyers must place a $2,500 deposit upon ordering, according to the Los Angeles Times. That money cannot be refunded. Once the cash transfer goes through, the customer will then get an estimated date of delivery, which could take as long as nine months.

The influx of cash from those deposits and successful deliveries might help bring Tesla closer to profitability, something CEO Elon Musk said could happen in Q3 and Q4 of this year.

Confidence in the tech firm has not always been high in 2018. Tesla had to lay off 9 percent of its workforce only weeks after Musk was criticized for possibly threatening employees over the idea of workers unionizing.

The Model 3 — it starts at $35,000 and is the most affordable of the company’s electric vehicles — infamously hit production snags earlier this year. However, the dropping of reservations and some of Musk’s recent comments indicate things might be going more smoothly now.

Those production problems were blamed on a Musk initiative to automate parts of the vehicle’s assembly line. Automation could not work as efficiently as human workers could in this case, so the idea appears to have been scrapped.

Last week, Tesla revealed the Model 3 could now park itself using the company’s autonomous driving technology.

This story has been updated to correct the deposit amount needed to order Model 3.