An in-depth look at the Tesla Model 3 configurator

Tesla has dived into the first production phase of Model 3 which Elon Musk called a “production hell” at the highly anticipated delivery event last month.

First production Tesla Model 3s are only being given to Tesla board-members and employees who made an earlier registration last year. The first production Model 3 went to Elon Musk himself that is a premium long-range version with premium upgrades in full.

The design studio or configurator for the Model 3 did not open even for the early reservation holders other than Tesla employees who were willing to spend significantly higher than $35,000 for a long range version of the vehicle (+$9,000). These first production Model 3 vehicles also have a mandatory premium interior and fog lights package that costs an additional $5,000.

We can get a clear idea of the first production Model 3 costs by looking at the screen-shots below provided by a Tesla employee through his friend ‘zxn11’ via the Tesla subreddit.

Click/Tap screen-shots to zoom-in.

01. Getting Started

On the first step of the Model 3 design studio — reservation holders have two options, either to reserve their place for the base Model 3 that will be available for deliveries later in Fall 2017 or Start customizing their order for the premium long range vehicle.

02. Long Range Battery & Premium Upgrades

The 2nd step of the configurator shows the Long Range Battery and Premium Upgrades as select-able with check marks but you cannot proceed without adding these options to the order which add a total of $14,000 on top of the $35,000 base price of  Tesla Model 3.

03. Color and Wheels Selection

Black is the only color included in the price of the car — rest of the available paint options cost an additional $1,000, you can browse Model 3 full specs including the paint/color options here.

18″ aero wheels are standard on the vehicle and if you want the 19″ sport/v-spoke wheels that surely look better will cost you an additional $1,500 which in my opinion is a lot of money and for less than this you can get after-market wheels that are at least better looking than the default aero ones.

CarAndDriver research shows that smaller wheels, specially 17 – 18″ are the best for comfort, ride quality, safety and less damage to vehicle suspension — so 19″ will only look better but if functionality is important than form for you 18″ wheels are the best option to choose and save you money as well.

04. Autopilot Options

As we can see in the screen-shot below Tesla clarifies that the Safety features that enable Model 3 for a 5 star rating in every category are standard on all versions of the car and Autopilot options are another level of safety and comfort.

Enhanced Autopilot is a suite of hardware-software combination that distinguish Tesla cars from the rest of the pack enabling features such as Autopark parallel and perpendicular, lane keeping assist, freeway exit and more you can explore in these release notes.

Of course you can add Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability later down the road but will cost you $1,000 additional each on top of the current cost. You can leave the Full Self-Driving Capability option for now as it would take a few more years for Tesla cars to be fully autonomous and getting all the regulatory approvals.

05. Order Placement and Payment

So you can place your order for a deposit of min $2,500 and that is a non-refundable payment. Final payment page shows all the summary of the order just like an e-commerce checkout. In the below screen-shot the customer selected all the optional features, premium upgrades and Autopilot that brings the total to $60,500 including the $1,000 destination and documentation fee.

Please let us know your useful thoughts in the comment section below. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter for future updates.