What if your place in line cost $1000.00?

[Ehninger1212]

I was fully willing to plunk down $2500 just like people had to do when they reserved the model Y. So yes.. i would have still reserved. $10,000 would have been excessive.. but i still would have done it

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[Scot Braley]

so are they planing to raise the pre- order price? if so will they contact us? I still wan't my CT

 

[CyberMoose]

They don't seem to be planning to raise the price. this is just a hypothetical thread.

It will take them years to fulfill these preorders, so maybe a increase in preorder price wouldn't be such a bad idea.

 

[Jhodgesatmb]

They don't seem to be planning to raise the price. this is just a hypothetical thread.

It will take them years to fulfill these preorders, so maybe a increase in preorder price wouldn't be such a bad idea.

I would have plunked down the $2,500 I did for the Model Y, but I would rather put that money into Tesla stock (as has already been mentioned) unless Tesla was going to put it in some kind of escrow and pay interest on it or even buy Tesla stock on our behalf with it (or offer the option). If they would have done that I’d have been willing to give them more.

 

[MEDICALJMP]

Since it is a “what if” thread I’ll play.
I think a lot more people put down their $100 deposit that normally would not have dreamed of getting a Tesla because it was an affordable deposit. Think of the reveal date, November 19. What happens around that date? Thanksgiving and then Christmas and Hanukkah when everyone and their sister is spending cash and watching their credit card statements climb. Tesla had no clue what the reaction was going to be. Look at Elon’s statements about no market research and just wanting to build a kick-ass apocalypse vehicle. The reaction was greater than they expected in part due to the starting prices and the deposit. Had it been $2,500 the demand would have been high, just not as high. $10,000 deposit and it would not have been the runaway success of preorders.

For me, $100 was perfect. Just enough to not worry about for the years it will take to design, build factory and then start production. And for me in the half-million wait list club having $1,000-$5,000 sitting in someone else’s bank is for 2-4 years is not something my cheap soul wants to do.

$500 - fine.
$1000 - yes.
$10,000 - no way. My little nurse’s salary is saving everything it can to buy my dream vehicle and not worry about the extras.

 

[CyberMoose]

I think Tesla was very smart with the $100 deposit. Not only did it give them a lot of money to work with towards getting everything ready for Cybertruck, but it also got so many people interested. I would have easily put down $1000 for a Cybertruck, but not everyone would. Tesla set their preorders really low which probably gave them 2x-3x more orders than they would have gotten at $1000-$2000. This doesn't mean those people were going to cancel but those people are in line at least and now that they are in line, they might do some research and Tesla might send out emails when they confirm more details and specs about the Cybertruck. This will probably result in a lot of those people ending up with a Cybertruck order, when they wouldn't even have preordered in the first place.

Maybe this was Tesla's plan, maybe they just don't really care and everything worked out great.

 

[showmemo]

Personally, I would have preferred the deposit be a bit higher. Right now, the google spreadsheet guestimate has me getting my tri-motor in 2023. If I was certain it would be nearly 3 years, I might get a MY to drive in the meantime... but that estimate could be way off... maybe a full year or more off, due to a couple factors:

1. With the deposit so low, there are many orders that will be cancelled when it's time to pony up for the actual purchase. A higher deposit may have 'weeded out' the folks that may not be able to afford it when delivery time comes.​

2. There are a number of folks that ordered more than one with no intent to keep all of them. A higher deposit would have discouraged that.​

I think $1000 would have been fine. $2500 would have been better.... $10,000... um no.

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[Crissa]

Having $1000 to dispose of on a vehicle two years later isn't much of a predictor of demand once those two years have passed. Yeah, those buyers are maybe more solid, but they're also just as likely to have bought something else in the meanwhile.

I might have put a thousand down - I was actually looking to buy a truck in 2022 - but that's alot of money to most truck buyers.

-Crissa

 

[Bigvbear]

but i have to ask, why does it matter? If Tesla got 700,000 orders at 100 each or 70,000 at 1000 each....its still $70,000,000 in interest free capital they raised quickly and can use for R&D as well as building the Austin plant.

This also shows them how much demand there really is. People who are Ok with plunking down a deposit on a vehicle they can't even test drive is one thing, but think of how many didn't plunk it down, but still wants a CT anyway. You have to remember 99% of car buyers do not buy cars how Tesla sells cars. Some are not comfortable with paying up front and waiting.

 

[madquadbiker]

All I could find was the testing from 2017, where despite the advantages, they said the negatives were too numerous, and they denied Tesla's request.

Yes, they are looking into it more, but is there newer information you can point us to, please?

This must be a first where the U.K. is ahead of the curve, well not just the U.K. because I’m sure Honda are selling their Honda E car in other countries and that uses cameras instead of mirrors.

 

[5UBV3T]

I am ok with $100 and probably would have put $1000 down.

To be honest I am ok with where I am in line (640k-ish). I think when it starts rolling out, many of those preorders are going to disappear. I don't think I'll be getting it next year or maybe even 2022 because of the dropouts, but many will drop out.

The reason I'm ok with my place in line is because of the QA issues we've seen with the MY. Yes, the M3 still has some lingering issues (but I'd gladly accept delivery with some of the small issues I've seen). But the MY I think was rushed to market. I will gladly wait for my CT so some of the issues can be sorted.

Also, I've seen people, especially when the MY was beginning to deliver that upgraded things such as rims and immediately got notification of delivery or ordered another MY and cancelled their reveal night orders when they immediately got delivery notification on their brand new order. I'll keep that in mind if there is an upgrade they offer that I want.

 

[Dbl07.co]

I’m in no rush to jump to front of the line, I need 3 years to figure out where I’m going to get $70,000 for Cyber Truck w/o my wife finding out how much I spent on it!

 

[meddle]

Couple thoughts on this (TL;DR my answer is no)

1. When reservations come time to convert to orders, I believe we'll see 1/3 of the list fall off
2. The reservation list is still impacted by location, which means Texas residents will most likely see a bump in their place in line just to speed up the initial production numbers for that particular quarter.
3. Reservation is impacted by current ownership of a $TSLA product

We'll all move up to some degree - I do not believe ~750,000 people are purchasing this out the gate.

 

[lancethibault]

$1000 at the reveal, no I would not have, and that's not a reflection on my ability to afford the truck nor a reflection on my interest in buying the truck. So if they had done $1k reservations they would be missing out on those like me. I'm just not going to drop a grand on something I can't actually see, much less own for several years. Note that we are all waiting years from our reservation date to actual ownership...not just the people who are 500,000 in line.

I think Tesla did the right thing at the reveal. They got a ton of reservations (even if they are inflated); generated a lot of media; and at the $100 fully refundable reservation price, they also got a lot more people interested and following forums like this one...since those people now have some skin in the game. More followers, generates more Q/As, more critiques, more ideas, more market interest, etc. When 25% or 50% of us get bored following the CT news for a week or two at a time, they still have several hundred thousand more followers generating content...and the cycle continues in mass. If the deposit was more costly, we might be generating content at the pace resembling Rivian....boring.

I'm glad they did what they did.

 

[Akgolf]

I’m sure the number of reservations would be less than it is now, but let’s not forget there were over 500K reservations for the Model 3 at $1,000. I was one of those reservation, but didn't anticipate retiring, moving and building a new house.

Hated having to pass on the Model 3, but don’t see any issues getting the Cybertruck. Especially since I put 30K of my retirement fund into Tesla when I retired in 2016.