Elon Musk is now the proud owner of his company's first mass market electric car.
Musk showed off the first Tesla Model 3 vehicle on Twitter and Instagram over the weekend, sharing pictures of the shiny new four-door sedan parked in front of Tesla's production plant in Fremont, California.
Tesla board member Ira Ehrenpreis was the first person to pony up the full deposit for a Model 3, and had rights to the first production unit. But he gifted it to the company's billionaire founder as a present on his 46th birthday, Musk said.
Tesla is aiming to dramatically ramp up output of the eagerly awaited electric vehicle in the coming months.
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The first 30 customers will get to drive off in their very own Model 3 in late July. After that, Tesla plans to produce 100 cars in August, 1,500 in September and 20,000 in December, according to Musk.
Musk has warned there will be a long wait for pre-order deliveries. Customers who put a deposit down now will not receive the car before the end of 2018, he said at the company's annual shareholder conference in June.
Tesla opened up pre-orders for the Model 3 more than a year ago. Within a matter of days, more than 300,000 customers put down $1,000 deposits to reserve their place in line.
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The new vehicle costs $35,000, nearly half the price of Tesla's next-cheapest car, the Model S. The lower price point could help broaden the brand's appeal.
The first Model 3 reveal comes just days after mainstream automaker Volvo announced it was going all in on the electric car, shifting to full electric and hybrid production by 2019.
