A check mule of the suspected Challenge Highland model of the Tesla Mannequin 3 was noticed in China’s Xinjiang area, as per a brand new spy video shared by Drive Tesla Canada on Twitter.

A white Tesla Mannequin 3 seems on the freeway with its entrance and rear sections hidden beneath black covers. It’s onerous to identify any particular design particulars within the quick video (embedded beneath), however the method through which the facelifted parts are coated is according to a number of different pre-production fashions we’ve seen just lately.

We reported final week that the facelifted Mannequin 3 entered trial manufacturing at Gigafactory Shanghai. Twitter customers and native experiences suspect that mass manufacturing is anticipated to start out in September 2023, whereas buyer deliveries might start by October at an estimated worth of 200,000 yuan, which is $26,463 as per the trade fee on August 15, 2023.

We’ve additionally seen a number of prototypes plying on California’s streets, particularly close to the model’s engineering headquarters in Palo Alto and the Fremont manufacturing facility. The model seen in California had a barely longer entrance overhang, and a potential new digital camera positioned low on the entrance bumper.

CEO Elon Musk acknowledged in the course of the Q2 2023 earrings name that Tesla’s Fremont manufacturing facility could be upgraded in the course of the third quarter. A number of constructing allow filings with the Metropolis of Fremont recommend that new gear was on its solution to the manufacturing facility, together with a brand new tent, or “sprung construction.”

What do these indications imply for the Tesla viewers? Tesla’s lack of a PR division makes it onerous to substantiate these particulars, however a number of experiences suspect that the upgrades are for the so-called Challenge Highland.

If the experiences are correct, the fourth quarter of 2023 may witness two main launches from Tesla, the facelifted Mannequin 3 and the Cybertruck. Low-volume manufacturing of the latter is anticipated to start later this 12 months, and mass manufacturing might begin early subsequent 12 months.