SAN FRANCISCO--The battle for the midsized, middle-class electric car market is revving up as high-tech upstart Tesla scrambles to get its Model 3 out to buyers in the face of strong competition from Detroit mainstay General Motors, reports Seeker. Deliveries of the GM-produced Chevy Bolt have increased significantly, while Tesla continues to deal with persistent production delays.
It’s been two years since Tesla announced the Model 3, a four-door EV with a base price of about $36,000 before tax breaks, and an entry-level range of about 220 miles per charge. More than half a million people flocked to put down a deposit on one.
Although Tesla has dominated the EV market with its high-end offerings so far, the assembly lines for the Model 3 have been slow to crank up. While the company says it hopes to hit its target of 5,000 cars a week by June, it just cracked 2,000 at the end of March.
“I wouldn’t quite say they’ve regained their footing yet, but they’re making progress,” says stock analyst Efraim Levy, who follows Tesla for the market research firm CFRA.