CyberTruck No More Waitlist, Available for Immediate Delivery

[manitou202]

This is why I counsel caution on the Scout unveiling. There is lots of both jubilation (what a great deal!) and hand-wringing (this will kill Rivian!).

Wait until Scout is anywhere close to delivering product and see how much (A) prices increased, and (B) specs slipped.

I have no data but I imagine a significant portion of the 2 million preorders were built upon a $40K starting price. As we know, the final product was twice as expensive as a starting price and almost 3X for the initial FS. Additionally, some promised features and performance metrics from the unveiling never came to the final product.

Of course, the interest Tesla made on 2M $100 deposits over several years worked out well in the short term, but if inventory piles up it will not be pretty for the stock or the company image.

Meantime, let Scout figure out how to build a production line, train a crew, and build a car that checks every promised box, including price. I have no use for either of their models—my R1T is as big as I need to go as I approach retirement, and the e-tron will probably be replaced by an R2 in a few years—but Scout acolytes may want to find the cybertruck launch as instructive.

GM originally reported 90k Hummer EV reservations.
https://insideevs.com/news/658768/gmc-hummer-ev-suv-reservation-figures-details/

Lucid supposedly had 34k for the Air and were going to start reservations for the gravity in early 2023.
https://insideevs.com/news/620837/lucid-open-reservations-project-gravity-suv-early-2023/

These reservation numbers are all bogus. They don't correlate with actual demand once the vehicle is launched.

I have the same skepticism with Scout. Product looks cool and sounds great, but it doesn't mean anything until it goes on sale and the final specs are released. Plus who knows what the competition will be like in 2027.

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[Donald Stanfield]

. I was never a fan of a $100 deposit, you really can’t gauge the real demand at that price.

100% agree, but Elmo wasn’t using the deposit to gauge real interest. He used it to get an interest free loan and artificially inflate his stock price. He runs the company purely to control the stock price and all his decisions are based on that.

 

[TexasBob]

Volvo has their own driver assist team that employs a hundred people. They also have LIDAR. Unless Rivian gets big enough to make that kind of investment, they are better off outsourcing it to Mobileye. But that means it won’t be any better than anyone else’s system.

Yes, like the other Chinese automakers, Geely is investing pretty aggressively in this space with its investment in Luminar / ECARX etc. It also has a pretty close tie-up with MobileEye. No bad thing.

 

[George Kaplan]

“ not selling well” is relative. Will CT sell 120k units per year? Or 60,000 units?
Even at 60K units, CT is projected to outsell all other EV trucks combined. R1T may not break 15k units based on Q3 sales number. It’s easy to see that Rivian is in trouble. Down 27% is a very bad number even with its production disruption. $80k+ truck market is not that big, and the data shows CT has been dominating, outselling all other EV trucks combined. Please stick to the current or projected figure when you want to make a point. Speculation is just a speculation….

A year ago—the Q3 analyst call for investors and analysts—Musk predicted sales of 250K CT annually, perhaps predicated by shipping the $70K “entry model” next year.

(A) 60K to 120K units are a long way from 250K, especially when a significant portion is from culling back orders—the pre-sold buyers—and not from outreach to new customers.

(B) You’re correct the market for $80K+ pickups is small, so Cybertruck “dominating” that sector is true “world’s tallest midget” territory. Since the sales apparently came to a screeching halt in the last few weeks, it doesn’t bode for a halo effect to the product—the pre-sold market bought, but those trucks in the street apparently aren’t driving the rest of the buying public into the arms of Tesla.

It startles me to write these words, but the *average* price of a full-size pickup in 2024 is $65K—I remember when guys bought pickups because they were cheaper than the “real” cars that they couldn’t afford. Now a pickup is the prize, not a consolation ribbon.

As a Rivian shareholder, I’ve wanted them to do a build-down of the R1T to get the selling price around $60K-$65K—I think they’d do well, still having today’s R1T as the GMC version of the build-down’s Chevy.

All the EV pickup makers need to be running ads highlighting how these trucks kept households and emergency services running after a natural disaster. We figure to be seeing more of these storms, and Ford showing how its Lightning truck kept the lights on at its owner’s house for two days during storm-related outage, or Rivian featuring the guy in Asheville whose R1T was encased in mud and still ran, allowing him to assist others in his community, makes a compelling argument which might land harder than “it’s good for the environment”.

 

[COdogman]

A year ago—the Q3 analyst call for investors and analysts—Musk predicted sales of 250K CT annually, perhaps predicated by shipping the $70K “entry model” next year.

(A) 60K to 120K units are a long way from 250K, especially when a significant portion is from culling back orders—the pre-sold buyers—and not from outreach to new customers.

(B) You’re correct the market for $80K+ pickups is small, so Cybertruck “dominating” that sector is true “world’s tallest midget” territory. Since the sales apparently came to a screeching halt in the last few weeks, it doesn’t bode for a halo effect to the product—the pre-sold market bought, but those trucks in the street apparently aren’t driving the rest of the buying public into the arms of Tesla.

It startles me to write these words, but the *average* price of a full-size pickup in 2024 is $65K—I remember when guys bought pickups because they were cheaper than the “real” cars that they couldn’t afford. Now a pickup is the prize, not a consolation ribbon.

As a Rivian shareholder, I’ve wanted them to do a build-down of the R1T to get the selling price around $60K-$65K—I think they’d do well, still having today’s R1T as the GMC version of the build-down’s Chevy.

All the EV pickup makers need to be running ads highlighting how these trucks kept households and emergency services running after a natural disaster. We figure to be seeing more of these storms, and Ford showing how its Lightning truck kept the lights on at its owner’s house for two days during storm-related outage, or Rivian featuring the guy in Asheville whose R1T was encased in mud and still ran, allowing him to assist others in his community, makes a compelling argument which might land harder than “it’s good for the environment”.

Rivian still has an "Entry" model listed on their list of VINs and I know they have asked about such a model in customer feedback sessions. I love my quad R1T and all it's features, but a cheaper model with a decent interior, traditional suspension, etc. would be more in line with my budget. I think many others would agree.

 

[mc242x]

See them all the time in SoCal - at this point nobody gives them a second look. Tesla screwed up bad with this one, had they made a bit more of a conservative truck it would have been a huge hit. Now that the Tesla Bros are already driving them and thinking about their next attention-getter, demand is soft. Good job Elon.

 

[mc242x]

A year ago—the Q3 analyst call for investors and analysts—Musk predicted sales of 250K CT annually, perhaps predicated by shipping the $70K “entry model” next year.

(A) 60K to 120K units are a long way from 250K, especially when a significant portion is from culling back orders—the pre-sold buyers—and not from outreach to new customers.

(B) You’re correct the market for $80K+ pickups is small, so Cybertruck “dominating” that sector is true “world’s tallest midget” territory. Since the sales apparently came to a screeching halt in the last few weeks, it doesn’t bode for a halo effect to the product—the pre-sold market bought, but those trucks in the street apparently aren’t driving the rest of the buying public into the arms of Tesla.

It startles me to write these words, but the *average* price of a full-size pickup in 2024 is $65K—I remember when guys bought pickups because they were cheaper than the “real” cars that they couldn’t afford. Now a pickup is the prize, not a consolation ribbon.

As a Rivian shareholder, I’ve wanted them to do a build-down of the R1T to get the selling price around $60K-$65K—I think they’d do well, still having today’s R1T as the GMC version of the build-down’s Chevy.

All the EV pickup makers need to be running ads highlighting how these trucks kept households and emergency services running after a natural disaster. We figure to be seeing more of these storms, and Ford showing how its Lightning truck kept the lights on at its owner’s house for two days during storm-related outage, or Rivian featuring the guy in Asheville whose R1T was encased in mud and still ran, allowing him to assist others in his community, makes a compelling argument which might land harder than “it’s good for the environment”.

If Rivian had a truck for $60k, I'd be driving it now instead of an EV6 and reservations for the R2 and Scout Traveler.

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