There’s no doubt that Tesla’s halo product in 2024 is the steel-bodied Cybertruck, which began getting into customers’ hands at the tail end of 2023.
This week, the company held its Q4 earnings call, which was the first time investors got to ask questions about the Cybertruck since those initial deliveries began. One of these questions was around the delivery timeframe for these trucks and the product’s demand in a high-interest rate environment.
Tesla’s team responded by sharing the conversion rate of reservations to orders. They said if that rate continues, then all 2024 Cybertruck builds could potentially be sold out for the year already.
“The reservation to order conversion rates so far has been very, very encouraging,” Tesla said. “If the trend continues as it very likely to be, we will soon be sold out of all the builds in 2024.
“The auto numbers keep growing. So we’re now all hands on deck, focused on ramping so we can fulfil all the demands in a reduced wait time.”
Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk suggested the company could still “dramatically raise the price,” given the demand, but said that it wouldn’t. “It doesn’t feel right to us to sort of gouge people for early delivery,” he said. “So, but really, the demand is off the hook.
“There’s some very good trucks on the road, but if you were to switch out the brand name, you wouldn’t hardly know which company made them, but you definitely would know the Cybertruck. That’s our best product ever.”
With the latest update from the Tesla team on this increasing demand backed by conversions of reservations to actual orders, it’s a promising sign that Tesla will aim to ramp production up as quickly as possible, ensuring it hits its 250,000 annual production rate as soon as possible.
We can’t wait to see a few demonstration models of the Cyertruck at Tesla’s local showrooms in Australia, which if the recent roadshow of Cybertrucks in China is anything to go by, could be as soon as later this year.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.