Tesla Launches Model 3

Electric car company Tesla, and its billionaire entrepreneurial leader Elon Musk, know how to dazzle an audience.

At the back of Tesla’s Fremont, Calif. factory last Friday night -- surrounded by thousands of Tesla employees and under the spotlight of cameras and a video live stream -- Musk showed off the first thirty of the company’s new Model 3 electric cars, awaiting pick up by customers, including many employees.

It's a car intended for a more mainstream customer with a base price of $35,000, and it represents a major bet by the fourteen-year-old Tesla. Musk has spent over a decade envisioning this car as the key to his “master plan” to make electric cars both affordable and thrilling, and an estimated 500,000 customers have already made reservations for the cars.

But it won’t be the fawning press coverage, with many already comparing the launch of the Model 3 to the launch of the iPhone, that will determine if the rollout of the Model 3 will be a success. It will be the employees.