Tesla's Cybertruck surpassed 1.5 million pre-orders

The upcoming Tesla Cybertruck will be the automaker’s first new passenger vehicle in three years, and the vehicle is already showing strong signs of demand before hitting the market. Even as Tesla prepares to send the futuristic Cybertruck to production in the middle of next year, the electric truck has already gained an impressive number of pre-orders.

Tesla’s Cybertruck has reached 1.5 million pre-orders, and some are taking note of the electric pickup’s unprecedented demand as detailed in a report from electrek. Currently, users only need to put down a $100 refundable deposit to reserve the vehicle, though electrek’s Fred Lambert points out that this is still a show of strong demand — even if orders end up being far lower.

The Cybertruck was unveiled in 2019 and within a week of its launch, CEO Elon Musk said the truck had reached 250,000 reservations. Throughout the early pandemic, electrek learned from some sources that certain Tesla stores were garnering hundreds of Cybertruck pre-orders every week. In 2021, one crowdsourced Cybertruck reservation tally estimated more than one million pre-orders for the Cybertruck.

Tesla’s Cybertruck is expected to begin production at Gigafactory Texas in mid-2023 and reach volume production by the end of the year. In recent weeks, Tesla posted a number of job listings at the Austin, Texas factory for Cybertruck production. Italian casting press manufacturer IDRA also shared photos of the Giga Press machine packaged and ready to be sent to Giga Texas, all while the electric truck continues in the tooling stage of pre-production.

It’s not yet clear how the Cybertruck will priced, though Musk said earlier this year that it will be different than the $39,900 starting price it was introduced with in 2019. Musk cited inflation costs as a primary reason for the change. Originally, the Cybertruck was set to cost between $39,900 and $69,900 depending on which trim level was selected, though the pricing model was removed by the company in 2021.

Now, Lambert expects the Cybertruck to be priced between $50,000 and $90,000, and to be launched with the higher-end trim option first, as it has done with other vehicles in the past. Comparatively, the Tesla Model Y starts at $65,990 in the U.S. before incentives, while the Model 3, Model S and Model X start at $37,890, $94,090 and $110,090, respectively.

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