Switching to Rivian

[jerhenderson]

Unless you ordered fairly recently, it was supposed to be end of year 2021.

It’s not quite officially late, but pretty clearly will be.
ramp up in '22

 

[Ogre]

I think you are spot on about Elon’s goal and intention when CT was revealed. Tesla was shooting for $35K M3 as well. But road to $45K M3 is paved with $35K intentions. Removing the pricing is the sign of that realization. Tesla will be much more efficient in production of CT than competition and probably will have a higher production capacity at least for a while. That means market demand keep the calculus for CT the same as M3. A few may get lower priced CT just so Tesla can say we delivered what we promised but most of us especially someone like me at 700K spot gotta pay to play. I hope I am wrong and everyone before change of the web site get what they reserved.

In general, the cost to manufacture things is highest right after launch and decreases over time.

This will likely be trebly true with the Cybertruck as the entire company is pretty much laser focued on driving down the cost of batteries. The single most expensive component on the truck is getting less expensive over time.

The cost to actually produce the truck in terms of labor and capital equipment also goes down over time as the factory gets more and more efficient. The first year (maybe 100,000 trucks) of vehicles share the cost of the entire factory during the time of highest depreciation. Later on when they are cranking out 500,000 trucks a year, those costs are much lower per vehicle. Pretty much any fixed costs will be spread across 5x more vehicles.

Unless we get into prolonged inflation, costs are going down over time.

So if anything Tesla has a ton of incentive to get the most money out of these early trucks.

Also, these supply chain shortages aren’t going to last forever and competition in for EVs is growing.

 

[Diehard]

these supply chain shortages aren’t going to last forever

Neither am I (not a spring chicken). You are correct about cost going down with time but the only thing that has translated to is larger margins for Tesla. For us to get a deal, two things need to happen: lower demand to supply ratio and/or large enough supply of lower priced competitive products. I am sure that will happen at some time in future but I am not sure if I will be around to see it.

 

[Ogre]

Neither am I (not a spring chicken). You are correct about cost going down with time but the only thing that has translated to is larger margins for Tesla. For us to get a deal, two things need to happen: lower demand to supply ratio and/or large enough supply of lower priced competitive products. I am sure that will happen at some time in future but I am not sure if I will be around to see it.

Here’s another way of looking at it.

If there were no backlog, what price would Tesla need to set to ensure they sold a million trucks a year?

 

[John K]

Drawing an arbitrary line in the sand at 250k is kinda stupid and not really feasible in terms of production.

My reservation number is 194k and change. I put 250k as kidding and to not appear as selfish as I was pretending to be. IMO, solar will be an option but I believe the prices will be as originally listed for at least the first two production at decent speed years. In three more months we should firmly know if the supply chain bubble is being eliminated or if we need to weather a longer storm. Trend is improving.

 

[Diehard]

Here’s another way of looking at it.

If there were no backlog, what price would Tesla need to set to ensure they sold a million trucks a year?

All depends on what Silverado’s / Lightning’s production capacity and price is at the time CT backlog is gone. If the other two decide they have lost too much money playing catch-up in the EV world and have to recover by pricing high, CT price will remain hi as well. Tesla started the bidding war at $40K so lightning had to have a $40K version as well but the only semi-real (no actual customers yet) truck on the ground is $70K. So I have to see $40K-$50K truck to believe it. If you are talking about an economy with a super competitive landscape where customer is king, then original CT price should hold. It is just looking at today‘s market, my imagination has to really stretch itself.

 

[Jhodgesatmb]

the CT was always late '22. Nothing has changed.

In all fairness, it originally was going to be the start of production late this year and ramp next year, and now it is start of production late next year and ramp in 2023. It has changed. Personally, I suspect that the real holdup will be HW4 and not the 4680s or the 8K-ton gigapress. I wouldn't be surprised to see a fully functional CT with HW3 before HW4 shows up. For testing if nothing else.

 

[Jim Polkowski]

Good luck finding RT1. Wish I had a reservation for the Rivian as it is very nice and I like the size as it is smaller and easier to drive in the city. My CT won't be until they make 250,000 so it could be a few years.