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Tesla's Mysterious Announcement Set for Today Gets Postponed for Wednesday

If you woke up this morning and looked at the calendar, you would have seen that it said October 17, 2016. A pretty mundane date, but one that Elon Musk made just a little bit more special last week when he said it would host a new Tesla product announcement.
Tesla Model 3 1 photo
Photo: Tesla Motors
Nobody really knows what the CEO wants to talk about with us, but the consensus seems to be on the Autopilot 2.0 version. Of course, we've been wrong before, and Elon Musk loves a good surprise, so it could actually be anything. We were promised more information on the Tesla minibus and truck by the end of the year, so who knows?

When he first talked about this reveal, Musk did say it was going to be something "unexpected by most," but then again it's hard to creep into Elon Musk's mind and know what he thinks other people expect. Besides, if we were to go there, that would be the last thing we'd waste any time searching for, focusing instead on a new multi-million dollars business idea.

In a tweet written at 2:27 AM, Musk said that the promised announcement would be postponed until Wednesday, as it needs "a few more days of refinement." That's not such a big deal, right? Well, it wouldn't be, except that...

...it might be

For all the great things that Tesla Motors has achieved, it was never a company known for its fantastic ability to respect its due dates. All Tesla products have been late one way or another. Elon Musk hasn't been shy about making bold promises, but even though most of them were kept, they were rarely delivered on time.

Now, though, Tesla wants to go mainstream, producing big volumes and, hopefully, selling them as well. Musk has talked about a spectacular increase in the company's production capabilities, and all within an ever tighter time frame. For example, Tesla was supposed to produce 500,000 units by 2020, but earlier this year Musk he would cut that by two years, making it 2018.

However, when you fail to keep a promise made within a week - and it's not something that involves actual production - that doesn't bode well for the people who are hoping to drive their Model 3s by the end of next year. Of course, since it's Tesla, they will wait and still be over the moon when the car finally arrives, but how long will this be able to last? The competition is starting to get more fierce by the minute (there's the Chevrolet Bolt, Mercedes-Benz's plans, and Atieva's luxury sedan), and soon Tesla customers will begin to have real alternatives. It's time Tesla started looking like a serious car maker, and the only one who can help with that is none other than Elon Musk.


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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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