Model 3 reservations stand at 373,000 after corrections

In a statement submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to raise $2 billion in common stock for Model 3 production and accelerate its production, Tesla confirmed as of May 15 2016 that it has held deposits for 373,000 reservations of Model 3 worldwide, after 8,000 customer cancellations and 4,500 orders "that we canceled on the belief that they could have been duplicates from speculators."

The statement went on describing how Tesla obtained all those reservations "We have obtained this level of reservations without any advertising or paid endorsements, with only a few social media posts leading up to the March 31 st unveiling, without anybody but those who were in attendance on March 31 st having had an opportunity to test drive the car, without yet publicly disclosing numerous features about the car, and with almost no attempt to drive customers to make Model 3 reservations since the week following the March 31 st unveiling. If we wanted to, we believe that we could further increase the number of Model 3 reservations with minimal effort, but believe it is better to guide customers to purchase products currently in production."

In conclusion, Tesla confirmed it will be pushing its Model 3 production plan two years in advance "We are on track to achieve volume production and deliveries of Model 3 in late 2017. Because of the significant demand that we have seen, we have decided to advance our 500,000 total vehicle build plan (combined for Model S, Model X, and Model 3) to 2018, two years earlier than previously planned."

Part of the proceeds of $2 billion investment will come from CEO Elon Musk buying around 5.5 million shares from Tesla, roughly 2.77 million of which he will sell publicly to cover taxes from this purchase while donating around $1.2 million shares (valued at $250 million) to charity. The net amount Tesla earns from Musk exercising his options is around $600 million, leaving the company the remaining $1.4 billion to raise publicly through secondary stock offerings.