This is mostly true, and Tesla's own pricing history shows why. Musk promised a $35,000 Model 3 from the car's 2016 unveiling as the mass-market product that justified Tesla's mission. The standard-range $35,000 version did briefly become available in early 2019 — so it was not pure vaporware — but within months Tesla pulled it from online ordering and made it an "off-menu" car you could only buy by phone or in a store, saying the move would "simplify" operations. Tesla later killed the $35,000 configuration altogether. For almost all buyers, the real entry price landed thousands of dollars above the headline figure. The context that keeps it at "mostly-true": the Model 3 did become a genuinely mass-market, best-selling EV, so the mission behind the promise was broadly delivered even if the specific price point was not. But as a promise, "a $35,000 Tesla" was available only briefly — sold in limited numbers as a software-limited Standard Range — and then pulled. Verdict: mostly-true — the car existed briefly at that price, but the lasting $35,000 Model 3 that was promised never really materialized.