Elon Musk’s company took $276m in deposits for the ‘affordable’ $35,000 car, which is primed for a 2017 launch

Tesla Motors took almost $10bn (£7bn) worth of pre-orders for its newest car, the Model 3, in just two days, according to the company’s chief executive Elon Musk.

By the end of 2 April, 276,000 pre-orders had been placed for the car worldwide. Although the Model 3 is Tesla’s first attempt at an “affordable” electric car, it will still cost at least $35,000 when it ships in mid–2017, meaning the company has secured $9.7bn worth of sales for a car still over a year away from rolling off the production line.

Musk estimated an average selling price of $42,000, once all the optional extras are taken into account, meaning that the actual revenue for Tesla could be even higher still.

Tesla still has to build all the cars, however. Even when total sales still amounted to under 200,000, Musk tweeted that the company was “definitely going to need to rethink production planning”. But the $1,000 deposits for the cars, even if it’s just a small portion of the final sale price, should help: the company now has an extra $276m in the bank to prepare it.

Although the Model 3 is supposed to be delivered in 2017, there is a chance it could be later: the company’s previous car, the Model X, eventually arrived three years late, due to problems moulding the seats for the car.

The Model 3 will be the third major car in Tesla’s fleet. The Model S, a luxury sedan, was launched in 2012, while the Model X, an SUV/people carrier crossover, was launched last year. Musk has repeatedly commented on how the model numbers of the three cars will eventually spell out the word “S3X”.