Musk Picks Random Date to Unveil Tesla Model Y Then Sticks to It

(Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk randomly picked a date to unwrap the Tesla Model Y, one of the next vehicles in the carmaker’s lineup, before locking it in for the official unveiling.

In a Twitter exchange on Thursday, Tesla Inc.’s chairman and chief executive officer said he’d initially made up March 15 as the date. He later settled on the day because he said it also aligned with the company’s launch plans.

“I just made that up, because the Ides of March sounded good,” Musk tweeted. “But consider it real. We could unveil Model Y anytime from late this year to mid next year, so March 15 is about right.”

Musk said earlier this month that the Palo Alto, California-based company would probably start producing the Model Y crossover in 2020. That’s later than he’d communicated previously.

The Ides of March, which corresponds to March 15 on the Roman calendar, is infamous as the date of Julius Caesar’s murder in 44 BC.

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.