Stupid. Divisive. Fugly. The Hummer shouldn’t have sold in numbers, but it did. Might Elon Musk pull off a similar trick with the stainless steel Cybertruck?
Forty-six months after the official unveiling—when design chief Franz von Holzhausen famously shattered the prototype’s Armor Glass with the spirited throw of a metal ball—yesterday’s Cybertruck Delivery Event confirmed that Tesla’s Texan Gigafactory is finally now slowly spitting out Cybertrucks.
With an estimated 2 million preorders from self-styled “reservationists,” this Blade Runner–inspired electric pickup could make the world’s most wealthy man even more unfeasibly rich. If half of those $100 refundable deposits stack up, that’s revenue of more than $65 billion, based on a newly inflated $61,000 price tag—up $21,000 from what was promised four years ago.
“Just 15 percent of those preorders would equal the annual unit sales of Toyota,” says Boston University Questrom School of Business professor Tim Simcoe. “But Tesla faces the challenges of scaling up production and achieving a sufficient flow of paying customers.”
On Tesla’s March 1 Investor Day, Musk said demand for the Cybertruck was “so far off the hook, you can’t even see the hook.” But landing even 15 percent of the reservationists seems optimistic because the vehicle is running late and isn’t global—Cybertruck won’t be for sale outside of the US, Canada, and Mexico for some time, and doesn’t appear to meet safety regulations in the European Union and Australia anyway.
The price bump will also be a drag on demand. The vehicles picked up by the 10 or so customers yesterday—likely to be “manufacturing unit” one-offs rather than true retail models, and which will be tethered to Tesla for some time—was $10,000 more expensive than the $39,900 base model promised in November 2019. Crucially, the world has moved on since, with a slew of competitors selling here-now, traditionally-shaped product.
Ford snuck in ahead with its $49,000 F-150 Lightning, the battery-powered version of the truck that has dominated the pickup segment for decades. GM will soon roll out its $52,000 electric Chevy Silverado, and Stellantis is readying its $58,000 RAM 1500 REV. Extroverts wanting a look-at-me e-candy truck can buy Rivian’s $73,000 R1T.
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