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points by alt227 1 day ago | 0 comments

The original design is what gave them millions of pre-orders, it was the reduction in range and increase in cost that made most people cancel those pre-orders.

[–] kube-system 1 day ago

A $100 fully refundable deposit is not a very high bar of commitment. I suspect many of those reservations were non-serious.

[–] alt227 1 day ago

$100 is a fair chunk of money for the average person. I agree some preorders were probably half hearted, but the $100 commitment definitely weeded out some the jokers for sure.

[–] kube-system 1 day ago

$100 is a fair chunk of money for anyone who would have never been a buyer anyway.

$100 is also a trivial amount of money for a larper with half the budget required to complete the purchase. Or someone with plenty of money who just put in a reservation "just in case" they wanted one.

[–] alt227 1 day ago

Thats not really fair, the $40k promised price is not that much higher than your average middle class car purchase. I think anyone willing to go to the site, sign up, and hand over $100 would be willing to to take on a payment plan for a $40k car.

[–] kube-system 1 day ago

The average buyer in the US can't afford a new car of any kind. The average car sale is a used car. Used cars outsell new cars 3 to 1. And the average used car sells for $27k.

Entertaining the idea of a new car purchase is an upper-middle class thing, and a fully-refundable $100 is impulse buy territory for most of them. Yes, many of them would have been capable of taking on a $40K purchase, but $100 is not a serious indicator that they were serious about doing it. People who have this money are doing relatively well and blow $100 on much more inane things that aren't refundable.

A traditional dealer would ask someone with much less money looking at a used Nissan Sentra to put down $500 to hold a car.

[–] alt227 1 day ago

> $100 is not a serious indicator that they were serious about doing it

OK, but I think it is. So can we agree to disagree, is that ok with you that I have a differing opinion?

[–] kube-system 1 day ago

You are fully entitled to your opinion but the data shows very little overlap between the groups of people who buy new cars and the groups of people for which $100 is a significant amount of money.

If you want to hold reserve a damn Toyota the dealer is going to ask you to show up in person, put down $500-1000 and fill out a credit app.

Tesla knew the $100 reservation was too low to show serious commitment, and this was intentional for two reasons:

1. to float an interest free loan

2. to manipulate investors

[–] HarHarVeryFunny 1 day ago

I wonder how many people liked the design vs tolerated it? If Ford offered a cybertruck trim on the F-150 without changing the price would people buy it?

No doubt there is some demand for an "out there" design, but I'd have to guess that the projected $40K price was itself a large part of the attraction.

[–] alt227 1 day ago

Possibly, but as it cost $100 to put down a deposit I would be surprised if that many people were willing to actually pay for something they only tolerated.

[–] HarHarVeryFunny 1 day ago

It was a refundable deposit (and small), so I wonder how many people were even that serious - no real commitment.

2019 USA annual car/pickup sales were ~17M. I find it very hard to believe that 10% (2M cybertruck pre-orders) of those purchasers were seriously interested in a cybertruck - it really is not a design made for mainstream tastes.

[–] alt227 1 day ago

If you owned a company and announced a product that 2 million people went and paid you $100 each for to preorder it, Im pretty sure you would think differently.

[–] HarHarVeryFunny 1 day ago

Not sure what you mean by that - I'm sure Tesla was happy to have the reservations (great publicity - maybe that was the point), but there is no indication they took the numbers seriously.

[–] stackghost 1 day ago

The design looks much better rendered on screen than in real life.

I thought the early images looked amazing but I see them all the time in real life (a few people in my neighborhood own them) and they just look so stupid on the road.

[–] alt227 1 day ago

Agreed, but this thread is duscussing the original popularity and whether Elon was wrong to believe it or not.

With false but great looking renders and false but great sounding promises, the hype and interest was real. It was only when the real product became apparent that it became a joke and interest was lost.

You would think maybe Musk would learn something about overpromising from this fiasco, but judging by things like DOGE I guess not!

[–] stackghost 1 day ago

>You would think maybe Musk would learn something about overpromising from this fiasco, but judging by things like DOGE I guess not!

You're talking about the guy who has a fake twitter account tweet at him things like "you're such a good father, Elon, your kids are lucky to have you".

He's absolutely desperate for attention and approval, because not being perceived as cool is crippling to his sense of self-worth.

Of course he won't learn from overpromising! He inhabits a different reality, surrounded by sycophants and yes-men.