#TeslaModel3

BMW has the plug-in sedan you want, no waiting.

That’s the message in Bimmer’s new ad for the 330e plug-in hybrid, which takes a not very subtle jab at would-be Tesla Model 3 buyers. Titled “Wait or Drive” (get it?), the television commercial plays the tiniest of violins for the 373,000 buyers who put $1,000 down on a car they might not see for a couple of years.

Electric automaker Tesla Motors has collected more than 400,000 deposits from customers for its 2018 Model 3 sedan, despite having little more than rough renderings of the car to show prospects. This is a remarkable achievement that speaks to its groundbreaking products and the cult-like following of Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

People standing in line to put down deposits and then be willing to wait for a hot car is not without precedent. I sold Honda automobiles during the 1980s and the similarities to today’s Teslamania is striking.

Memo to Musk: If you can indeed increase your production five-fold in two years, I am sure you will move 400,000 Model 3s, but most of them won’t go to today’s deposit holders.

Allow me to explain. The scene was Benson Honda in San Antonio. The year was 1984 …

It was a little terrifying watching the question-and-answer session near the end of Tesla’s livestreamed annual shareholder’s meeting, and it wasn’t just the lady asking about goji berries.

All of the speakers — well, the majority of them — seemed to possess a stratospheric level of admiration for Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Like religious (or political) disciples, the trust they placed in the man’s brilliance and decision-making abilities seemed limitless.

Well, after this week’s announcement that Tesla is offering to buy SolarCity — a solar energy provider co-founded and chaired by Musk — cracks are forming in his circle of supporters, especially in the financial realm.

South Koreans are used to having a bunch of Americans hanging around, but the arrival of a group of Tesla employees won’t be welcomed by executives at Hyundai.

Tesla wants into the South Korean marketplace, and just posted job listings for sales and engineering positions in the Asian country, Bloomberg reports. Already registered in South Korea, the automaker plans to open up an office in Seoul and hire a recruiter based out of Japan.

Volkswagen is rumored to cut some 40-plus models from its worldwide fleet as it ushers in a new era of electrification.

That, Tesla wants you to order something now instead of waiting until later, and millennials are just like the rest of us … after the break.

The meme is called I Hope Senpai Will Notice Me, and it commonly refers to a situation in which someone hopes desperately to catch the attention (no matter how temporary that attention might be) of a romantic interest and/or social superior.

When it happens in the auto industry, it usually comes in the form of an auto industry alpha male temporarily deigning to notice one of our many beta/omega/is-there-something-worse-than-omega-cause-if-so-that-word-applies automotive journalists.

I inadvertently participated in a “Senpai, Notice Me!” moment of my own when I agreed to face Bob Lutz in the CTS-V Challenge. Robert Farago told me not to attend. He’d correctly diagnosed the event as one in which auto journos would crawl on their hands and knees to lick the spittle dripping from Bob Lutz’s super-alpha chin; in particular, I remember the odd shudder of ecstatic, erotic joy that visibly wiggled through Wes Siler’s body when Bob turned to him and offhandedly said, “Hi, Wes.”

The stuck cork that was the Model X has finally cleared its supply hurdles, causing Tesla production to hit a new high at the automaker’s Fremont, California factory.

With assembly of that model speeded up, Tesla recently hit a production rate of 2,000 vehicle per week, a knowledgeable source told Electrek — a figure that’s still way off the company’s goal of building half a million units per year within the next 18 months or so.

Four weeks after he said the Model 3’s design was six to nine weeks from being finalized, Tesla CEO Elon Musk now says he’ll need six more weeks until the affordable EV is off the drawing board.

Got that? When the Model 3 (scheduled for production in late 2017) was unveiled on March 31, almost everyone noticed the embryonic state of the vehicle, especially its blank-slate interior. What the future electric sedan will look like after Tesla finishes its design work is still anyone’s guess.

Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk plans to turn off the free electricity taps at his company’s Supercharger stations for owners of the upcoming Model 3.

Musk made the announcement last night during a question and answer session at the company’s annual shareholders meeting.

Paying to use the Tesla-financed recharging network isn’t something the roughly 373,000 reservation holders want, but the decision comes down to basic economics, said Musk.

If you’re a Tesla owner who spent the past year diligently convincing your friends and family to join the club, clear your schedule for July 29.

The electric automaker recently mailed out invites to a grand opening party for its battery-producing Gigafactory, located (like a Bond villain’s lair) in the desert outside Reno, Nevada. The chances of guests being wowed by a fully operational factory humming with workers busily cranking out EV batteries is doubtful, though.

The folks at United Auto Workers are eyeing Tesla’s production targets and making plans.

The electric automaker wants to manufacture 500,000 vehicles per year in 2018, and the union wants the workers behind those EVs in its fold, according to USA Today (via Left Lane News).

Though it hasn’t announced anything officially, UAW boss Dennis Williams recently expressed interest in unionizing Elon Musk’s California assembly plant employees.

Everyone and their 90-year-old great aunt knows that Tesla is putting all of its might into reaching a volume target of 500,000 vehicles in 2018, but more voices are now calling CEO Elon Musk’s timeline impossible.

Musk wants high-volume production to start in less than two years, but suppliers tell Reuters that the accelerated target is a pipe dream. Will delays in parts sourcing and other nitty-gritty issues throw cold water on Tesla’s plans (and customers’ Model 3 ownership dreams)?

It’s billed as the affordable electric car of the future, but 12,200 reservations have dropped off the Tesla order list since the company’s Model 3 came on the scene.

The new tally was revealed when Tesla announced plans to raise $1.4 billion through a share offering to boost its financial standing, Bloomberg reports.

Since orders opened, 4,200 duplicate reservations have been erased by the company, and 8,000 customers have backed out of their purchase. That leaves 373,000 reservations on the books, each backed by a $1,000 check.

As the owner of a 2013 Tesla Model S P85 and occasional TTAC writer, I have my opinions on the Model 3. Many commenters thought Tesla’s business model of starting at the high-end and working its way down market was crazy, but Elon Musk had the right idea: use the cash flow from high-end car manufacturing to ramp up your engineering chops and supplier relationships so you can push prices down to eventually make a mainstream product.

That’s exactly what Tesla is doing and the plan seems to be working brilliantly — but there’s a catch: managing the engineering “complexity budget.”

In a bid to get the Model 3 out the door on time, ideally without the snafus that plagued the Model X, Tesla Motors has hired a longtime Audi executive to serve as vice-president of vehicle production.

The hiring of 22-year Audi veteran Peter Hochholdinger, first reported by Reuters, comes as Tesla ramps up its manufacturing capacity to handle the 400,000 reservations placed on its upcoming $35,000 sedan.

Amid the company’s all-out dash to bring its Fremont, California factory’s production capacity to 500,000 vehicles per year by 2018, a damning report just released by the Bay Area News Group sheds light on the low-cost foreign labor helping to build that capability.