I will buy a Tesla Model 3 in 2021

Originally published 25 May 2016. AI polished for a better reading experience: 11 August 2026.

A mass-market electric car as a cultural and industrial turning point.

In this historic video Tesla revealed the Model 3 — a car that aims to transform the entire automotive industry. In human history there are not many filmed moments that announce a new era: Yuri Gagarin’s first flight, the Apollo crew’s moonwalk, the fall of the Berlin Wall. I believe this roughly twenty-two-minute Tesla presentation concentrates the effort of thousands, maybe millions, of people who advocated and worked for an electric car: cleaner air, better performance, and a better future for the planet. For all of us, this car marks a new era.

The Model 3 will cost $35,000. That is not cheap, but it is still within reach of the upper middle class in developed countries — which is a great many people. The behavioural shift that follows broader Tesla adoption will be huge. Other manufacturers will, as expected, introduce their own affordable, high-performing cars at similar or even lower prices. Because the electric-car supply chain is so different, new players will appear and challenge a long-established market. Everything will change.

I want to be part of that change. I think that by 2021 Spain will have Supercharger infrastructure dense enough to drive comfortably from Madrid to any coastal city. First deliveries are expected to start in 2017, which leaves four years for bug fixes and software and hardware improvements. There is no good reason not to buy a Tesla Model 3 that year. The future feels closer every day.