Tesla's Model 3 Is Becoming One of America's Best-Selling Sedans
Source: Bloomberg News
First it was America’s best-selling electric car. Then it became the best-selling luxury car. Now, against the odds, Tesla Inc.’s Model 3 is becoming one of the best-selling sedans in America, period.
Automakers on Tuesday reported monthly and quarterly sales totals. For the three months that ended in September, Tesla delivered more Model 3s than all but four of the top sedans sold in the U.S., regardless of size or price.
It’s an imperfect ranking because Tesla didn’t break out sales by country, and the Model 3 tally included some deliveries to customers in Canada. And the climb comes at a time when Americans prefer crossovers, SUVs and trucks by an ever-wider margin. Nonetheless, the third-quarter showing was unprecedented for an electric car and a remarkable turnabout for Tesla, which struggled for much of the last year to mass-produce the sedan.
Tesla’s competitors are feeling it. Sales of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class, the best-selling luxury sedan in the U.S., plunged 24 percent last month and are down 28 percent for the year through September.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-03/tesla-s-model-3-is-becoming-one-of-america-s-best-selling-sedans
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These are luxury cars for the general public. If our middle-class wages ever ever ever increase even a fraction of what they have for the uber wealthy, owning a new Tesla wouldn't be a big deal for the masses.
Glad to see so many new car buyers choosing to go Tesla EV over the older ICE technology cars of Mercedes-Benz, Audi, BMW, etc. I think it has to do with how awesomely fun driving a Tesla is and how much Tesla owners love their cars. The torque is literally traction braking instant, meaning, making those traffic lights before they change to caution, very doable.
I want one so bad! Soon. Very soon. 
Imagining is all we'd be able to do. We certainly wouldn't have computers for communication.
for burning gas/oil, and the fact is electric cars would have been the norm since Ford produced electric Model-T back in the day.
Per Wikipedia, the Model T had a gas engine all throughout its production.
Ford Model T
....
Engine
Main article: Ford Model T engine
The Model T had a front-mounted 177-cubic-inch (2.9 L) inline four-cylinder engine, producing 20 hp (15 kW), for a top speed of 40–45 mph (64–72 km/h).
There have been some homebrew conversions to electric power. For example:
Also, there was at least one experimental electric car built on a Model T frame:
Daniel Strohl
6/16/10 12:30pm
The electric car is nothing new. Ninety years ago, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, two of America's greatest innovators, tried building one and failed. Daniel Strohl of Hemmings Blog tells us how they killed the electric car. —Ed.
That Henry Ford and Thomas Edison became good friends later in their lives is well known. They camped together, they presented each other with lavish gifts, they owned houses immediately adjacent to each other. Many Ford enthusiasts also know that, at the time Ford first drove his Quadricycle on the streets of Detroit in 1896, he was working for Edison at the Detroit Edison Illuminating Company. They also know that a couple months later, when Ford was introduced to Edison and showed Edison his plans for a gasoline automobile, Edison encouraged him to pursue those plans. ... That Edison and Ford later put their minds together to conceive a low-priced electric car is not so well known.
{snip}
Just about five years later, Ford began to change his mind. In early 1914, word had gotten around that work had started on a low-priced electric car. Reports appeared in the Wall Street Journal, in the trade magazines, and in other newspapers as far away as New Zealand regarding Ford's foray into electric cars. Ford himself even confirmed the rumors in the January 11, 1914 issue of the New York Times:
{snip}
Ford may have fibbed a little by saying that multiple experimental cars have been built, but we know for a fact that at least one experimental Ford electric was built in 1913, as seen above out in front of Ford's Highland park plant. It was a tiller-steered car with an unusually swoopy frame and a contingent of batteries under the seat. The man operating it, Fred Allison, was an electrical engineer from Detroit who was tasked with designing the car's motor. According to Ford Richardson Bryan, writing in his book, Friends, families, & forays: scenes from the life and times of Henry Ford, the car's electrical system and overall design were handed to Alexander Churchward, at that time the vice president of Gray & Davis, while general mechanic's duties were assigned to Samuel Wilson, a former Cadillac employee. A year earlier, Churchward had written a paper on the standardization of the electric car (in which he argued for a 25-mph maximum speed for all electric vehicles), while Wilson had experience with Cadillac's self-starter program.
Work continued into 1914, as we can see from Allison perched atop the second experimental electric car, this one using a Model T frame, suspension and front axle, a Model T steering wheel, and a worm-drive rear axle. The latter indicates that the motor, mounted behind the driver in the prior car, resided up front in the second car, near the additional bank of batteries. Regarding that worm-drive rear axle, Ford Richardson Bryan once again fills us in, noting in his book, Henry's Lieutenants, that Eugene Farkas was responsible not only for the worm-drive rear axle that was later modified for use in the Fordson, he was also responsible for the entire chassis of the electric car.
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Hemmings Motor News strives to enhance the experience of the collector-car enthusiast by publishing high-quality magazines and offering one of the most comprehensive classic-car classifieds in the world. Daniel Strohl is an associate editor with the company.
This story originally appeared on Hemmings Blog on May 25, 2010 at 8:00 AM.
Photo Credits: {The Ford Motor Company}, The Edison Ford Foundation
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The production Model T, though, was a gas engine affair.
HTH
