A wild Tesla Model 3 appears! A YouTube user has captured what is believed to be the first footage of Elon Musk’s entry-level electric luxury sedan on public roads while driving down Interstate 280 near Tesla’s headquarters in Palo Alto.
The footage, unfortunately, is in the vertical orientation weirdly favored by millions for YouTube posting, but it still gives us a solid look at the Model 3. Rolling along sans camouflage apart from some glare-fighting matte black paint, the new Tesla looks stubbier than the Model S cars pacing it. The shine off the roof would seem to suggest the car has a full-length moonroof, and while the clip includes the barest of glimpses of the front end, that quick peek is enough to convince us that our worries that the car resembled Donald Duck after a boxing match were unfounded.
All in all, it’s a handsome car. There’s a hint of previous-generation Mazda3 to the car from the rear 3–4 angle, which qualifies as a positive in our book. The high trunk and the shape of the tail lights gives us the occasional flashback to the Acura ZDX, but hey, no design is perfect.
Musk has stated that the Model 3‘s final design will not be identical to the car that rolled on stage on March 31; the designers, he stated on his Twitter account in early April, are still doing some tweaking. If the car in this video is any indication, though, the changes will be fairly minimal. Maybe it’s just the matte paint talking, but after seeing the car out in the real world…we can live with that.