Despite difficult times, Tesla is still getting a lot of new Cybertruck orders months after electric pickup’s unveiling, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Tesla is no stranger to receiving incredible numbers of pre-orders or reservations after unveiling a new vehicle.
The automaker used that model to prove demand and raise money to finance the production capacity.
It happened with virtually all new vehicles launched by Tesla, most famously with the Model 3, but orders generally quickly slow down after the buzz of the unveiling, which generally happens a week or two later.
With the Cybertruck, Tesla also managed to secure an impressive number of reservations.
After the unveiling, Tesla started taking pre-orders for the truck with a $100 deposit per reservation.
CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla received over 250,000 reservations for the Cybertruck within a week of unveiling the vehicle.
Tesla stopped updating its reservation tally, but other crowdsourced estimated counts put the total between 450,000 and 500,000 Cybertruck reservations 3 months after the unveiling.
As we previously reported, sources told Electrek that Tesla Cybertruck pre-orders are already helping boost sales. Tesla employees say that they are seeing a surprising number of potential customers coming into the store because of the electric pickup truck.
Some of them are just placing a reservation while others are deciding to go with another Tesla vehicle, but the Cybertruck is what brought them to Tesla.
Of course, that was before the coronavirus pandemic forced Tesla to close many locations and pushed the economy into a downturn.
Now Tesla’s new orders have slowed to a crawl in the US, according to sources talking to Electrek, but some of the sources say that Tesla is still getting a steady stream of Cybertruck reservations.
Some markets are still seeing hundreds of new Cybertruck pre-orders per week even in the middle of the pandemic.
Tallies are now putting Tesla Cybertruck reservations between 500,000 to 550,0000, which would be worth over $30 billion in sales.
Tesla said that it plans to launch the two higher-end versions of the Cybertruck in late 2021.
Those two electric trucks will have between 300 and 500 miles of range and be equipped with dual- and tri-motor powertrains and start at $49,000.
Electrek’s Take
I think it’s important to note that these reservations don’t represent as much as a commitment as Tesla’s previous reservation programs due to the much lower deposit amount, but it is still impressive that Tesla is receiving so many reservations, especially in the current context.
Even if just 20% of those reservation holders go through with an actual order, that’s a backorder of 100,000 Cybertrucks.
Hopefully, Tesla can stick to its timeline for the truck because I think Cybertruck is going to be the spark to electrify the pickup truck industry, which I see as the last nail on the internal combustion engine’s coffin.
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