Australia’s Cybertruck market has $1.5 billion potential for Tesla

Crowdsourced data has revealed that Australia is a hotspot for Tesla Cybertruck reservations, the largest such market outside of North America and could be worth $A1.5 billion to the Californian electric vehicle maker.

The new data gathered from 1,800 Cybertruck reservation holders, shared by online Tesla fan forum Cybertruck Talk, indicates that behind the US and Canada, Australia is the next largest potential market for the radical electric ute.

The angular shape of the all-electric Cybertruck, unveiled in November by Tesla CEO and co-founder Elon Musk, was at the time met with a wide range of reactions to its “cyberpunk” design that is made possible thanks to a toughened stainless steel exoskeleton.

But despite, or rather because of, the fresh approach to utility truck design taken by Musk’s Cybertruck design team headed by Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla took some quarter of a million reservations within one week of its unveil.

By February, it is thought that the number of reservations has ballooned to more than double this.

Granted, the $A150 ($US100 in the US) fully refundable reservation deposit made the decision to take a punt on getting a place in line for the Cybertruck an easy one to make for many.

The interest alone shows the disruptive potential that the Cybertruck could have on the auto industry – particularly in countries like the US and Australia where there is a preference for SUVs and utility trucks (known colloquially as utes in Australia and pickups in the US).

The new data online shared by Tesla fan forum Cybertruck Talk backs this market potential up.

The graph below shows the highest concentrations in different regions including US states and other countries. Put together, 76.25% of Cybertruck reservations are in the US, 10.43% in Canada and 3.19% in Australia according to the data.

With an estimated 16,473 reservations taken in Australia, the potential value to Tesla – based on the $US39,900 ($A63,194) base price of the Cybertruck and using today’s currency conversion figures, and not including shipping, import , luxury car tax or on-road costs – is around $US657 million ($A1.06 billion).

This, however, assumed the pricing for the single motor version – but the Worldwide Cybertruck Reservation Tracker on which the data is based, suggests this version is the preference for just 7.86% of trims chosen by reservation holders .

Tesla has not released pricing for Australia, but in the US the dual motor Cybertruck starts at $US49,900 ($A80,780) and the tri motor starts at $US69,900 ($A113,156).

If Australian reservations follow the overall proportions of trim sales (approximately 50% dual motor and 42% tri motor), the potential Australian market jumps to $A1.5 billion ($US945 million).

Not all these reservations may convert to actual sales, of course, and while it must be remembered the data is crowd-sourced rather than official data from Tesla, it certainly is food for thought.

How long it takes the current global market to recover from the toll of the Coronavirus outbreak undoubtedly may also have an impact on Cybertruck sales even if it is released in late 2021 as per Tesla’s current timeline.

If anything, it is certainly more likely to get a look in on the Australian market than this tongue-in-cheek “Mad Max” Model 3 complete with solar panel, spare tyre and jerry cans (with what inside?) shared by Fully Charged’s Dan Caesar on Twitter on Saturday!

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