Australia’s transition to electric vehicles is taking a big leap forward on Friday with the first deliveries of the Model Y electric crossover, the bigger sister of the best-selling Model 3 sedan.
The Tesla Model 3 has accounted for the bulk of Australia’s relatively slow pace of EV adoption with more than half of the  45,000 EVs delivered to date, but the combined sales of the Model 3 and the Model Y is expected to push beyond 50,000 by the end of this year.
The first lucky customers were able to pick up their Model Ys in Sydney from around 10.30 on Friday morning.
One of those in the first wave was user Sudanshu Diwakar, or Sid for short, who works in group finance for a major bank, and who ordered this blue Model Y above, a RWD version with white seats, which he promptly drove off to get a ceramic coat.
“I have a black Model 3 SR plus, and I had a friend who wanted a Model Y and he told me that the orders were open. So I had a look, made a booking, and now we are going all electric,” he told The Driven.
Sid’s family used to have two fossil fuel cars, a Lexus SUV and a Toyota Kluger, but one has already been sold and the other will also be sold very shortly.
“The experience (with Tesla) has been phenomenally good,” he says. “The ease of driving, everything. We are getting away from internal combustion engine cars to go electric. The ceramic coating will take a couple of days. My kids still don’t know.”
(Another publication on Thursday suggested the first customer delivery was made in Canberra on Thursday, but apparently this was a staff car. The Driven understands that some staff took delivery of their cars on Thursday night, and Friday morning’s were definitely the first to customers).
The massive influx of Tesla Model Ys – more than 12,000 were ordered on the first weekend when it was finally open to Australian customers in June – contrasts with the drip feed of EVs coming into the country from most other car makers, who are making offers in the hundreds, rather than the thousands or tens of thousands for Tesla.
Australia, though, still trails the world in the uptake of electric vehicles, with EVs accounting for less than 2 per cent of new car sales, compared to more than 90 per cent in Norway and more than 20 per cent in many other European countries.
Speaking at Tesla’s Annual Meeting with Stockholders in Texas on Thursday, Musk was bullish about the company’s EV production capacity, in general, and about the ramp up in Model Y production, in particular.
“So, on the Model Y, you definitely don’t want to count chickens until they’re hatched, but I think we’re tracking to have model Y be the highest selling vehicle by revenue this year. And the highest by unit volume next year,” Musk told the meeting.
Read also: Musk says Tesla may announce a new gigafactory location this year
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of The Driven, and also edits and founded the Renew Economy and One Step Off The Grid web sites. He has been a journalist for nearly 40 years, is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review, and owns a Tesla Model 3.