It’s March 2016. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk is on stage for the dramatic unveiling of the Tesla Model 3.

Tesla will make hundreds of thousands a year, he said. It will be fun to drive. It will be affordable. “In terms of price, of course, it’ll be $35,000,” he beamed, awash in thunderous applause.



For the record: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Tesla had not updated Tesla 3 deposit numbers since July 2017. It updated the number in an investor update on May 2.

Now it’s May 2018. You can’t touch a Model 3 for under $49,000. No one’s sure when the $35,000 version will be available. Production problems have pushed delivery of the lower-priced Model 3 six to 12 months into the future, according to official estimates from Tesla, a company notorious for missing deadlines.