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Tesla Model 3 electric vehicle smashes sales records, recasts Australia car market

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The Driven

Tesla’s newly arrived Model 3 electric sedan is certain to smash all sorts of electric vehicle sales records in Australia, and will likely double the cumulative total of Tesla EV sales in the country by the end of the year.

It is believed that in the month of September alone, Tesla delivered more Model 3 EVs in Australia than its entire sales tally of Model S and Model X electric vehicles for 2018, which stood at around 1200.

There is a suggestion that Model 3 sales for the month may have reached 1,500. But even at 1,200, that equates to around 5 per cent of the monthly sales of all new passenger vehicles in the country, which have been falling like a stone over the past year.

The burst of activity that saw even Tesla chair Robyn Denholm helping out with Model 3 deliveries in Sydney last week meant that more than 200 of the electric vehicles were delivered a day in the last few days of the month.

Social media has been full of posts from admiring customers quoting Tesla delivery staff about the pace of deliveries, from up to 70 a day in Brisbane, 400 in five days in Sydney, and similar numbers in Melbourne over the long weekend.

Tesla won’t confirm any numbers for any individual country. A number of between 1,200 and 1,500 for September would rank the Model 3 in the top five of new passenger cars sales in Australia for the month, and in the top 15 of all new car sales, including the popular utes and SUVs.

And it won’t stop there.

To read the full story on RenewEconomy’s electric vehicle dedicated site, The Driven, click here…

Giles Parkinson is founder and editor-in-chief of Renew Economy, and founder and editor of its EV-focused sister site The Driven. He is the co-host of the weekly Energy Insiders Podcast. Giles has been a journalist for more than 40 years and is a former deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review. You can find him on LinkedIn and on Twitter.

Giles Parkinson

Giles Parkinson is founder and editor-in-chief of Renew Economy, and founder and editor of its EV-focused sister site The Driven. He is the co-host of the weekly Energy Insiders Podcast. Giles has been a journalist for more than 40 years and is a former deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review. You can find him on LinkedIn and on Twitter.

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