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I just wrote about some Tesla preparing to sell the Model Y L in Australia. Back in the US, Tesla has rolled out a new version of the Tesla Cybertruck. A Tesla Cybertruck AWD for $59,990 is now on the table. The truck has a range rating of 325 miles and 7,500 pounds of towing capacity (but, of course, it can’t tow and go 325 miles on a charge).
About 7 years ago, when the Cybertruck was unveiled in 2019, an AWD version was shown as costing $49,990. However, that was never achieved. A RWD version was shown as costing $39,990, but, again, that was never achieved. Last year, Tesla briefly offered a RWD Cybertruck for $60,000, and now it is offering an AWD version at that price, so it has slowly gotten closer to those launch projections/promises, but it’s still $10,000 off on that AWD version and no longer offers a RWD version.
Whether the Cybertruck would be much more popular at these lower price points or not is unclear. Obviously, dropping the price $10,000–20,000 might help, but there’s also a question of how many people would actually like to buy the oddly designed truck. The Cybertruck got a ton of support from superfans, but it’s really not superfans who buy so many of the company’s most popular models, the Model Y and Model 3.
Note that in addition to the basic AWD version, Tesla offers a Premium AWD trim for $79,990 and the Cyberbeast for $99,990 after a $115,000 price cut this past week.
I have to say, looking at the pricing always makes me think of one of Elon Musk’s claims from yesteryear. Several years back, Tesla used to price its vehicles the way consumers would prefer — at $50,000 for example rather than $49,990. Musk said they’d always do that because it was just stupid and annoying to do it the common way it’s done basically just to trick consumers. It’s not like we don’t know we’re being tricked, but pricing something in the latter way ($49,990) just gives consumers a slight nudge that a product is much cheaper (than if it was $50,000) — even though it’s not. Well, with Tesla’s problems with consumer demand over the past few years, the company has changed its policy, and now all the models and trims have these kinds of normal and stupid prices that are $10 off a nice multiple of $1,000. Not a big deal, but I just always think of Musk’s hard stance against doing that and his promise that Tesla wouldn’t go that route.
Regarding Cybertruck demand, while Elon Musk once hoped to sell 250,000 of these a year, or at least 150,000 on more cautious days when he was less confident about consumer demand for the vehicle, Tesla sold only about 17,000 last year. Without a doubt, the new $60,000 — er, $59,990 — version of the Cybertruck is not going to get the model anywhere close to 250,000, or even 150,000, sales a year, but the question is whether it can give the model a noticeable boost in sales at all. The Tesla Model X was selling higher than the Cybertruck and is being discontinued, so one would think the Cybertruck needs a big boost in order to not be discontinued as well. I mean, why end production of the Model S and Model X but keep the Cybertruck going when it can’t even keep up with them?
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