Tesla already has over 200,000 deposits for its divisive Cybertruck
‘With no advertising & no paid endorsement,’ Elon Musk says
By Andrew J. Hawkins, transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.
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Two days after its big (and slightly botched) unveiling, the Cybertruck is already racking up a lot of interest. Tesla had received 146,000 deposits for the electric pickup truck as of Saturday, later increasing to 200,000, Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday. That’s a cool $20 million for Tesla’s bank account in just 48 hours. (Musk is calling these deposits pre-orders, though customers are not required to put down more than a trivial amount for the car, and are under no commitment to actually order it.)
Tesla is offering three versions of the truck: single motor rear-wheel drive with 250 miles of range for $39,900; dual motor all-wheel drive with 300 miles of range for $49,900; and tri motor all-wheel drive with 500 miles of range for $69,900. Musk said that 42 percent of reservations are dual motor, 41 percent tri motor, and 17 percent single motor.
"With no advertising & no paid endorsement," Musk said in a follow up tweet.
Customers making a reservation for the Cybertruck will have to wait a while before the boxy pickup pulls into their driveways, though. Production on the single and dual-motor versions won’t begin until late 2021, while the tri-motor truck won’t roll off the assembly line until late 2022.
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Tesla uses reservations for its forthcoming vehicles to generate excitement and provide a short-term revenue infusion, which helps provide a cushion for the cash-strapped automaker. And Musk likes to tout "preorder" numbers as a way to juice even more sales. For example, the company received 276,000 reservations for the Model 3 a few days after its unveiling in 2016; two days later that number grew to 325,000.
To be sure, Tesla doesn’t always release its reservation numbers. The company has yet to reveal how many customers have put down deposits for the Model Y, its electric crossover that it revealed last March.
The Cybertruck is no Model 3 or Model Y, but the respectable number of reservations indicates that Tesla still has its fair share of early adopters. That said, the Blade Runner-inspired design of the truck has been wildly polarizing, with social media spilling over with jokes at the truck’s expense.
Update November 25th, 2:41AM ET: Story updated with revised reservation numbers.
Update November 27th, 1:67AM ET: This story has been updated to refer to Cybertruck "preorders" as reservations. Since customers are only depositing a tiny amount of money relative to the actual cost of the vehicle, and because there is no real commitment to buy it, we’ve decided not to call these preorders.
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