In what year was the Tesla Model 3 unveiled?

Tesla unveiled the Model 3 in 2016. The public unveiling took place on March 31, 2016, at Tesla’s design studio in Hawthorne, California, introducing a more affordable electric sedan aimed at a much broader market.

The Model 3 was central to Tesla’s long-term plan to move beyond expensive, low-volume vehicles such as the Roadster, Model S and Model X. Tesla announced a target starting price of $35,000 before incentives, and the company opened reservations around the launch. Demand was immediate: hundreds of thousands of reservations were reported within days.

The unveiling year is sometimes confused with the car’s first deliveries. Tesla began delivering the first production Model 3 vehicles in 2017, but that does not change the answer to the unveiling question. Production initially focused on Tesla’s Fremont factory in California before expanding to other manufacturing locations.