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With their Model S they conquered the high-end electric car market; with the Model X in 2015 they plan to revolutionise electric SUVs; and now with their Model III Tesla Motors plan to make electric cars mainstream.

It's long been known that Tesla were planning on a more affordable version of their revolutionary electric cars, and now details have been revealed of what to expect.

The Model III will cost around £30,000 ($35,000), it'll have a range of 200 miles (320 kilometres) and it will be released in 2017.

Details of California-based Tesla Motors' next electric car have been unveiled. CEO Elon Musk has revealed the newly dubbed Model 3 will be 20 per cent smaller than its predecessor, the Model S (pictured), and will have a range of 200 miles (320 kilometres) on one charge

Details on the Model III were revealed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk in an interview with Auto Express.

The all-electric vehicle will be a compact vehicle, about 20 per cent smaller than the Model S.

Its pricing will also make it more affordable to the general public.

Musk had originally wanted to call the vehicle the Model E but, following action from Ford who wanted that name for themselves, the alternative name was decided upon.

That was much to the chagrin of Musk, who had wanted the three Tesla cars to spell out the word 'sex' (Model S, Model E and Model X).

'We were going to call it model E for a while and then Ford sued us saying it wanted to use the Model E,' Musk told Auto Express.

'I thought this is crazy, Ford's trying to kill sex! So we'll have to think of another name.'

Instead the '3' of the new car will be denoted by three vertical lines.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk (stock image shown) had originally wanted to call the vehicle the Model E but, following action from Ford who wanted that name for themselves, the alternative name was decided upon. Musk had wanted the three Tesla cars to spell out the word 'sex' (Model S, Model E and Model X)

Musk also revealed the Roadster electric sports car (shown) would be given a battery upgrade that would increase its range to 400 miles (640 kilometres)

The mid-sized luxury sedan will first be unveiled in 2016, a year after the Model X Suv is released in early 2015, and will go on sale in 2017.

It is apparently a competitor to compact executive cars like the BMW 3 Series and the Mercedes-Benz C-Class that have traditionally domianted this area of the market.

The project is being headed up by Tesla's British engineering chief Chris Porritt.

Like Tesla's existing fleet of cars, any owner of a Model 3 will be given access to Tesla's supercharger stations free of charge.

And it will also make use of batteries produced at Tesla's proposed 'Gigafactory', which will help produce half a million cars a year by 2020.

There are currently five U.S. states battling to host Tesla's plant: Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas.

Tesla hopes to sell 35,000 cars this year in the U.S. and the vehicles will soon also be rolled out in Europe, with countries like the UK to benefit from the supercharger network.

In other Tesla news, Musk also revealed the Roadster electric sports car would be given a battery upgrade that would increase its range to 400 miles (640 kilometres).