How much will a Tesla Model 3 electric car cost in Australia? Find out here

It’s the big question on many people’s lips, including this author. How much will a Tesla Model 3 actually cost when they arrive on Australian shores around the middle of the year (hopefully).

Tesla is not telling. What they have said is that all versions available in the US will be available in Australia as a right hand drive. And the costs will be roughly calculated on foreign exchange rates.

But it’s not quite as easy as taking the US35,000 sticker price for the US-version of the newly released “standard version” of the Model 3.

There are other things to take into calculation when comparing to the other offerings in the same range, such as the Hyundai Kona Electric, the Hyundai Ioniq, the Nissan Leaf (in particular the Leaf Plus) and others that may soon arrive in Australia.

For a start, there is the shipping cost, and then there are options on range, trim, colour, wheel size and the levels of assisted or automated driving.

Happily, one EV enthusiast, and aspiring Model 3 owner, Alexei Watson, has put together a spread sheet that anyone can use to help them calculate what the Model 3 price tag may look like.

It looks like this (above): And because it is a Google document it is dynamic and may not be available if a lot of people are trying to do the same thing at the same time.

Click here to try it for yourself.

But with the higher price of electric vehicles a commonly cited barrier to purchase, one question on everyone’s mind is: how much will they cost?

As you see from the static tables above, people are trying out various options, depending on their choices. The $US35,000 version, with basic options, is likely to cost $62,000 once shipping and GST is included.

So much will depend on the foreign exchange rate at the time of import. Just to illustrate how that has changed, here is a price history for the three years when the Model 3 was first unveiled, and attracted some 450,000 people to lodge deposits and join the queue.

We don’t know how many are in Australia, but safe to say it is in the thousands. Existing Model S and Model X owners get priority, apart from that we don’t believe Tesla have told anyone where they sit in the queue.