But will people commit to buying the electric pickup?
The design of Tesla’s Cybertruck is polarizing, to say the least, but it appears to have a healthy number of potential buyers waiting in the wings. Elon Musk has revealed that over 146,000 people have placed deposits for the electric pickup so far. And while the $39,900 price of the single-motor truck is tempting, that’s actually the least popular model so far. Just 17 percent of customers have put money down for the entry model, while 42 percent have picked the dual-motor version and 41 percent want the speedy tri-motor variant.
For context, the Model 3 had 232,000 deposits within the first day after its debut. The gap is narrow, all things considered — the Model 3 was supposed to be the relatively affordable, ubiquitous EV where the Cybertruck is both higher-priced and targeted at a more specific audience. This is helped by a much lower $100 deposit versus the $1,000 needed for the Model 3, mind you.
It’s also important to stress that these are deposits, not absolute commitments to buy the Cybertruck. Tesla wound up refunding a significant portion of Model 3 deposits from customers that either didn’t want to wait or lost interest. A lot can happen between now and the Cybertruck’s late 2021 production window, and we wouldn’t be surprised if some of those 146,000 back away.
