Tesla electric pickup truck received 200,000 orders. Is it really so popular?

According to foreign media reports, the stock price of electric car maker Tesla rose by 4% on Monday local time in the United States. Earlier, the company's CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that the company's first electric pickup truck Cybertruck had received 200,000 reservations.

Made from the same stainless steel as rockets and priced at more than $39,900, the Cybertruck failed to impress Wall Street last week when its "armored glass" windows were shattered during a demonstration.

However, Tesla immediately opened pre-orders and allowed potential buyers to reserve the truck for a fully refundable $100, compared to the $1,000 deposit it charged for the Model 3 sedan in 2016. That drew a flood of reservations and pushed up the company's stock price on Monday.

Three years ago, Tesla received 325,000 orders in the first week of accepting reservations for the Model 3, and the initial Cybertruck order numbers suggest that the pickup truck's reservation volume may be comparable. Roth Capital analyst Craig Irwin said that despite the higher deposits for the Model 3, the customer churn rate is also high.

Of course, not all orders ultimately convert into sales, as many orders may end up being canceled and the deposits refunded to customers. Tesla plans to start production of Cybertruck around the end of 2021.

The U.S. pickup truck market is one of the most profitable in the world and is dominated by Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler. Technology critic Marques Brownlee called the Cybertruck a "tech industry disruptor" and said Tesla would have to stand out if it wanted to enter the pickup truck market.

From touting the Cybertruck's features to taking a dig at Ford's F-150 pickup, Musk has been tweeting like crazy since the launch last Thursday to boost sales. He tweeted over the weekend: "Cybertruck is a better electric truck than an F-150 and faster than a Porsche 911." He also posted a video of the Cybertruck and F-150 "tug of war."

Musk has long used his 30 million Twitter followers as a platform to sell Tesla vehicles, but he got into trouble last year after he tweeted that he planned to take Tesla private, then walked it back. As a result, he agreed to submit public statements about the company to U.S. regulators and have them reviewed by legal counsel. Tesla did not respond to inquiries about whether all tweets were reviewed.

Domestic buyers show booking confirmation

On the day of the release on November 22, Zhongzheng Jun logged into Tesla's official website and found that the new car was already available for pre-order, and payment could be made through UnionPay, Alipay, and WeChat.

It is reported that the reservation amount for the new car is 100 US dollars, and the domestic official website shows that the deposit is 1,000 yuan.

In the comments on Musk’s Weibo, some netizens have shown screenshots of the orders.

However, not all bookings will be converted into delivered orders.

Earlier, the media cited statistics from statistical agencies showing that two years after the release of Tesla's Model 3, the cancellation rate once reached about 23%, due to reasons such as delayed delivery dates. Cybertruck will not be officially produced until 2021, so it is not easy for Musk to earn this $8 billion.