The hype around Tesla’s affordable electric car has been massive in recent weeks – and figures revealed today show that traffic on the firm’s website attracted an incredible seven million visits over the three days around the Model 3’s unveiling.
Reservations for the Model 3 opened on March 31, with traffic increasing by 798% the following day. US visits jumped from 220,000 on March 31 to a peak of 1.9 million on 1 April.
To put that into context, the data (revealed by digital market intelligence firm SimilarWeb) shows that Ford’s website received 358,000 US visits on 1 April, followed by Toyota (320,000) and 130,000 for Nissan.
Over 325k cars or ~$14B in preorders in first week. Only 5% ordered max of two, suggesting low levels of speculation.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 7, 2016
Potential customers could register their interest in the $35,000 (£25,000) Model 3 by leaving a deposit of $1,000 (or £1,000 in the UK) online. Within 24 hours, 115,000 orders had been received – rising to 325,000 within the first week.
Nearly half (48%) of visitors to Tesla’s website during this period were from the US, followed by Canada (6.64%) and the UK (5.58%).
