Tesla Model 3.
Credit: Tesla
My community in Los Angeles is under assault.
By a vanguard of new Model 3 owners: my neighbors have been snapping up Model 3s like, well, there’s no tomorrow.
I live in an area northwest of downtown Los Angeles which, for reasons I’ve never quite understood*, has become a hotbed of EVs. That includes lots of Model X, Model S, Chevy Volt, and a smaller, yet growing, population of Chevy Bolts.
But the Model 3 is in another league. By my estimate, it’s the most popular new car in my community.
Zoom in on my immediate neighborhood, three of my neighbors have new Model 3s (all purchased within the last 4 months or so). Zoom out to the entire community (several hundred homes), we’re probably talking about a dozen or more purchased in the same time period.
And there is practically a plague of Model 3s if I include nearby communities.
This is remarkable. Because the Model 3 configs aren’t cheap. These are higher-end variants that cost at least $50,000.
The Model Y could be another hot-seller.
Credit: Model Y
Is your neighborhood next?
Nationwide, Model 3 sales continue apace, with close to 70,000 sold in the U.S. so far this year and monthly totals surging month over month, according to sales tallies done by InsideEVs).
So, what’s happening? In a way, the Model 3 is the new Prius circa 2003. The new default green car buy. A pricey default but cheaper EVs can’t seem to touch it — to the detriment, unfortunately, of other great electrics like the Chevy Bolt.
The Bolt began production (October 2016) before the Model 3 (July 2017) and is a lot less than the Model 3. The Chevy, with an EPA rated range of 238 miles, got almost universally good reviews. And it falls roughly into the popular crossover category (technically it’s a hatchback).
Still, Chevy sold only 1,659 Bolts in the U.S. in June 2019, while Tesla sold a whopping 21,225 Model 3s, according to InsideEVs. And the overall totals are even more lopsided.
Today, my neighborhood is still the exception, not the rule. When I travel to places on the east coast, there isn’t anywhere near the kind of Model 3 saturation that I see around here. But other parts of the U.S., I believe, will eventually swap out some of their Mercedes, Lexuses, and BMWs for the Model 3. And your neighborhood could be next.
Model 3 parked outside my home. This is an increasingly familiar scene as residents in my community snap up Tesla’s hottest car.
Credit: Brooke Crothers
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*The reason could be related to the fact that I live in a very new part of Los Angeles. Most of the homes are less than 15 years old and, thus, the community attracts a lot of young, upwardly mobile homeowners.
