Tesla's Model Y Is Coming March 14, and Here's What We Know about It

From Car and Driver

• Capping a busy week for announcements, Tesla's Elon Musk has just named the date for the reveal of the EV brand's compact SUV, to be called the Model Y.

• He said it will cost more and have "slightly less" range than the Model 3 because it will be bigger.

• Test rides are promised at the event, which will be held in Los Angeles on March 14.

UPDATE 3/14/19: Tesla has showed a bit more of the Model Y in a short teaser video just a few hours before its debut. We're surprised to see that the Model Y has a similarly sloped roofline as the Model 3, as we assumed it would have a more upright hatchback shape in order to accommodate more cargo.

UPDATE 3/12/19: A dark teaser photo of the Model Y shows a front end reminiscent of the Model 3's, with similarly shaped headlights but a taller overall silhouette. The new crossover will officially be revealed Thursday March 14 at 8 p.m. Pacific time.

As he so often does, Elon Musk took to Twitter to offer tantalizing but incomplete information to the world. This time, it was about the Model Y crossover, about which there has been speculation but little concrete information. In a tweet, Musk announced that the Model Y will make its debut on March 14 at Tesla's LA design studio.

He added in subsequent tweets that the Model Y will be "about 10 percent bigger than Model 3, so [it] will cost about 10 percent more & have slightly less range for same battery." He promised that "detailed specs" and pricing will be provided at the March 14 event, and attendees will be able to experience test rides in the crossover. (Attendees will also be allowed to record video.)

Then in a reply to another Twitter user, Musk said that the Model Y will be close in design to the Model 3 (pictured at the top of this story). He also confirmed that the Model Y will have "normal" doors, unlike the larger Model X, which has multi-hinged "falcon wing" doors at the rear that are similar to a gullwing setup.

Based on Musk's tweets, we can speculate that the Model Y will start around $39,700 (10 percent more than the new Model 3 Standard Range that starts at $36,200) and offer just over 200 miles of range, a little less than that Model 3's 220-mile range estimate. The Model Y will share its platform with the Model 3, so it's otherwise likely to be mechanically identical, with a rear-mounted electric motor in its base form and a front motor added for all-wheel-drive models.

We'll bring you more details as soon as we have them. The big question, of course, is on-sale timing for the Model Y. In May 2o18, Musk had said that the Model Y would likely be on sale in 24 months, pointing to a mid-2020 on-sale date. It's unclear at this point if Tesla will use a reservation system like it did when it revealed the Model 3, but sales are sure to be online-only. We also don't know where the Model Y will be built. Tesla's Fremont plant has been ruled out, but the Gigafactory battery plant in Nevada is a possibility, as is a factory in China.

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