FIRST FINISHED TESLA MODEL 3 DUE THIS WEEK

The first production Tesla Model 3 is expected to be completed today (Friday), company founder Elon Musk has said.

Musk announced via Twitter the news of the first car nearing completion, as well as a handover party for the first 30 customers of the Model 3 on 28 July.

The South-african born businessman also confirmed production would grow ‘exponentially’, with 100 cars produced in August and ‘above 1500’ in September. He also forecasted as many as 20,000 Model 3 could be made in December.

Production of the Model 3 is expected to approach 500,000 units annually in 2018.

At the car’s unveiling in 2016, Musk said he was “fairly confident” deliveries of the Model 3 would begin by the end of 2017 and that “you will not be able to buy a better car for $35,000 (£27,000), even with no options.”

In order to cope with the production levels, Musk said at a shareholder meeting last month that the first Model 3 customers would have a limited choice of customisation options for their cars, stating: “I should say that we’ve kept the initial configurations of the Model 3 very simple. A big mistake we made with the X — there was way too much complexity right at the beginning. That was very foolish.”