Tesla has started taking reservations for its eerily futuristic truck, named Cybertruck (clearly no brain cells spent there) in China. The company launched its Shanghai gigafactory earlier this year, and has been on a roll in the country ever since, despite the worrying signs from COVID-19 pandemic.
Tesla has time and again proven that it isn’t your average automobile company, and its all electric Cybertruck is a testament to that fact. The vehicle, that looks like something out of Science fiction, has managed to garner massive market response, even though a production facility hasn’t even been decided on yet.
The reservations went live at Tesla Chinese’s official webpage, which was later posted on a Reddit channel r/teslamotors.
The truck, which was first announced in 2019, has become one of Tesla’s most optimistic endeavours. With 250M+ cruising range, 7500+ lbs drag ability and an engine that lets you go from 0 to 60 mph in less than 6.5 seconds, the Cybertruck might look like a toy, but it sure isn’t one (numbers taken from Tesla’s website). That is probably why despite of an unfortunate announcement event, the vehicle managed to amass 250,000 reservations in just a few weeks. Moreover, contrary to Tesla’s other launches, the pace of reservations just keep on increasing with the truck, with 650,000 reservations registered up until last month.
Now, the Chinese market is Tesla’s next big step, and for good reason. While COVID-19 has managed to halt the production at the Fremont facility, which has been forced to close its shutter time and again, the Shanghai factory has been operating at max capacity. The factory played a crucial role in the better-than-expected 90,650 deliveries reported in Q2. The company has big plans for this facility, and hopes to ramp the production to produce 150,000 vehicles by the end of this year. Thus, launching the Cybertruck is China seems like the obvious next move due to the growing demand of Teslas in the region.
That being said, the actual deliveries will not drop until 2022, when the company finally starts producing the trucks. Therefore, it is yet to be seen how many of these $100 refundable reservations convert into actual sales.
Elon Musk is going all out with this one, and has even confirmed a cross country trip in the U.S. with one of his Cybertrucks. This will give people in the country a chance to see the company’s innovation in real life, and will hopefully, provide a boost to the reservations.
