The Dual-Motor Tesla Model 3 Is Almost Upon Us

Even in its most basic form, a Tesla Model 3 isn’t exactly going to leave you wanting for performance. But if you want more off-the-line poke to enjoy whatever the weather, worry not: a dual-motor version is on the way.

It’s something we’ve sort of assumed ever since the Model 3’s reveal, but now we have two clear bits of proof that the twin-motor version is happening, and happening sooner than you might have expected.

Exhibit A comes from the configurator. It’s available by invite only, but users have posted screen grabs showing a dual motor option listed that’s now listed as arriving “Spring ‘18.” To go with that, we have the image above, which depicts a Model 3 fitted with two motors that are handily highlighted in red. It was found lurking in the HTML code of the recently updated configurator by a Reddit user, and posted on the Tesla Motors subreddit for the world to see.

‘Spring 2018’ is a fairly big window that could mean the option is arriving as early as March or as late as June. However, exhibit B might suggest that the all-wheel drive cars are coming sooner rather that later: Tesla has already registered 19 Model 3 Vins with the NHTSA. Could these be test vehicles? Quite possibly, but we’re speculating here.

On the other hand, Model 3 production isn’t exactly going smoothly. The manufacture of Tesla’s 3-series rival has been blighted by bottlenecks, causing the company to miss its original production targets by a huge margin.

So, it’s entirely feasible that the all-wheel drive 3 won’t be happening this Spring at all. At the very least though, we’d anticipate a debut at some point during 2018.

Sources: Reddit, Electrek