For background, there are reports of a massive project at Apple, with hundreds of executives working on an electric minivan. Additionally, an Apple self-driving car has been spotted on the roads.
Elon has been very public in saying that in order to complete the mission at Tesla he needs to get the third generation car out. He has also been very public about creating the sexy Roadster for early adopters ($125k, only ~2k produced), the Model S for the early majority ($60k, project hundreds of thousands will be produced), and the Model 3 for everyone ($35k, projected 1m produced).
Now, historically, Tesla Motors generally announces cars about 24-48 months before they drop (someone correct me if these dates from Wikipedia are wrong).
