About a month ago we reported that 1,500 Model S buyers showed up at the Tesla NUMMI plant to see firsthand the progress being made at the automaker's new California factory. Many of those buyers even got the chance to drive pre-production beta models of the Model S. It's the least Tesla could do to ease the minds of buyers who have already dropped $5,000 for a vehicle that won't arrive for another year. Now we know that those 1,500 buyers are but a fraction of overall early orders.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has just announced that the Model S is completely sold out for 2012, with 6,500 models already accounted for. Bloomberg reports that Musk gave the update on pre-sales during an interview on "In The Loop With Betty Liu." Musk added that most of those buyers were new to the Tesla brand, save for about 600 Roadster owners. That's a lot of potential good news for Tesla, and Musk wasn't finished. The tech startup mogul also added that Tesla could see an annual profit by 2013 - a lot quicker than many analysts expected.

News of Tesla's pre-sale orders and the prospect of short-term profits helped jump-start shares of the EV company's stock by 3.9 percent.Musk says Tesla Model S sold out originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 01 Nov 2011 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.


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