Less than a month after unveiling Tesla Motors’ latest model, CEO Elon Musk says his electric car company has already received nearly 400,000 orders for its Model 3 sedan.
Musk confirmed that order estimate at a transportation conference in Norway on Thursday and later added that the interest in the model had “surprised even us.”
Tesla (TSLA) unveiled the Model 3 during a March 31 event at the company’s Hawthorne, Calif. facility. A week later, the company said it had received more than 325,000 reservations from customers looking to buy the sedan. Last week, Tesla’s vice president of business development, Diarmuid O’Connell, said orders were nearing 400,000—a total that Musk confirmed Thursday.
That’s quite a bit of interest considering the Model 3, which is more affordable than other Tesla vehicles, will not start shipping until the end of 2017. What’s more, many customers are also expected to experience long wait times for delivery, with later orders likely to take additional years to be fulfilled. After revealing the new sedan, Musk himself even took to Twitter to advise Tesla customers to order the Model 3 sooner rather than later.
The Model 3 starts at just $35,000, compared to a $75,000 price tag for a Model S.
Reuters contributed to this report.
