Affordable Tesla details are revealed

Michael Allan McCrae | July 20, 2014 | 9:21 pm Battery Metals Cobalt Lithium

Confirmed: Our Gen III car, due out after Model X, will be named Model 3. http://t.co/PLhUzycSlp pic.twitter.com/noZf17LXre

— Tesla Motors (@TeslaMotors) July 16, 2014

Elon Musk’s new electric car is due out in 2016 and will be named Tesla Model 3, according to an exclusive by Auto Express.

The new car will be about 20% smaller than the current Model S and sell for about $35,000, about one half the price of the current Model S depending upon driver options.

Tesla is launching an SUV for sale in 2015 named the Model X.

Musk explains why the company opted for a numbering classification for its new car:

“We had the model S for sedan and X for crossover SUV, then a friend asked what we were going to call the third car,” Musk told us. “So I said we had the model S and X, we might as well have the E.

“We were going to call it model E for a while and then Ford sued us saying it wanted to use the Model E – I thought this is crazy, Ford’s trying to kill sex! So we’ll have to think of another name.

“The new model is going to be called Model 3, we’ll have three bars to represent it and it’ll be S III X!”

The car will be launched in 2016 and will be available in 2017.

Helping to lower the cost of future vehicles will be the company’s Gigafactory, a large battery plant. The company is aiming to begin construction in June 2014. An old airfield in Reno, Nevada rumoured to be the favoured site.

The article confusingly uses pictures of the current Model S in its story and some mock ups. No pictures of the Model 3 are available.