Tesla has just made history with the first ever pre-order of a vehicle being ordered by many sight unseen.

Close to 200,000 people have plunked down $1,000 for a vehicle that will cost a minimum of $35,000 and will hopefully be available late 2017.

There are some very impressive stats and some who are naysayers of what Tesla is doing. But Tesla is redefining the auto industry.

It would be interesting to see if Chevy with the upcoming Bolt release takes a similar tactic with pre-orders.  I doubt that Chevy will garner even half the pre-orders the Tesla has managed to score in less than 24 hours since the online ordering went live.  We could see the number of pre-orders break the half a million mark in the coming weeks or even days if the media runs with the story and it goes mainstream.

There are some very interesting development that could make the Model 3 a real winner without cannibalizing the other models as many have speculated.  Although the Model 3 is the low end of the Tesla line it is by no means a low end vehicle.  It will compete squarely against similarly priced vehicles from BMW and Mercedes.

The Model 3 will end most hopes the Nissan LEAF has to survive in the EV market, and if the Model 3 doesn’t end them, then the Chevy Bolt will.

The Fremont, CA plant Tesla owns is capable of producing 500,000 vehicles per year.  This sort of volume production would put Tesla squarely up against larger auto companies.

At the core of the Tesla vehicles is the battery packs, which will be produced at the currently in construction Gigafactory 1, located in Nevada.  Production is slated to being this year.  The capability of this plant will exceed worldwide production of 2013.