It's been more than 130 days since Tesla announced it built the first Cybertruck at its Texas plant. Now, with the Tesla Cybertruck delivery event on Thursday and shipments of the first new Tesla vehicle in nearly four years set to begin, there are still major unknowns, including price tag and who will be receiving the highly anticipated offering.
The Tesla Cybertruck delivery event is scheduled to take place Thursday at 2 p.m. Central Standard Time. In the runup to the event, Tesla hasn't released key details including pricing and vehicle specs that could affect Cybertruck demand and profitability. Major questions remain unanswered: the price, the vehicle driving range, what general specs of the pickup truck are, what delivery ramp up with look like and who will receive the first Cybertrucks.
Late Tuesday, Tesla put out a press release for the event, announcing "customers will take delivery of Cybertrucks." Tesla added it will announce additional details about the vehicle at that time. The event will be livestreamed on X, formerly Twitter.
Tesla stock fell 2.2% to 238.75 Thursday during market action. On Wednesday, shares angled 1% lower after gaining 4.5% to 246.72 on Tuesday, moving above its 50-day moving average. Tesla stock has gained around 20% in November ahead of the Tesla Cybertruck delivery event.
Musk Warns Production Ramp Is Steep
TSLA shares sank on Oct. 19, after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 earnings and revenue. Tesla reported third-quarter earnings down 37% to 66 cents per share, the lowest in two years for Chief Executive Elon Musk. Meanwhile, quarterly revenue increased 9% to $23.35 billion. Tesla's auto gross profit margins, excluding regulatory credits, fell to 16.3%.
Elon Musk on the earnings call also preached caution, offering investors warnings about the upcoming Cybertruck and the broader economy. The following day, Tesla stock fell 9.3%.
Musk said that while preliminary Cybertruck deliveries will begin on Nov. 30, it will take 12-18 months before the new vehicle is a "significant positive cash flow contributor."
"I just want to temper expectations for Cybertruck," Elon Musk told investors during the Q3 earnings call.
Musk added there will be "enormous challenges" in reaching volume production with the Cybertruck. He said Tesla will end up producing around 250,000 Cybertruck units per year. Musk said his best guess is Tesla will reach that output sometime in 2025.
Since then, Jefferies analyst Philippe Houchois said it may be better to shelve the Cybertruck for now.
"However unlikely just a few days before first deliveries, canceling Cybertruck would probably be positive for shares," Houchois wrote last week. "With 2024 already a lost year for growth, it would help Tesla refocus on an edge that was built on simplicity, scale and speed."
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas writing on Nov. 6 that Tesla must stop missing consensus EPS estimates while successfully launching new vehicles, including, but not limited to, the Cybertruck.
"The Cybertruck bar has been significantly lowered," Jonas wrote. "While we continue to view the model as relatively insignificant within the grand scope of Tesla's future portfolio, we would not underestimate the impact of launch/ramp execution on sentiment."
Tesla Cybertruck: Pricing
The Cybertruck will be the EV maker's first new passenger vehicle since the Model Y launched in early 2020. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk unveiled the Cybertruck in a November 2019 event, during which he infamously shattered the supposedly breakproof glass.
At the time, Tesla announced the price would start at $39,900 after Musk had previously said he wanted to price the base model under $50,000. Four years later the company is keeping mum on pricing even as Cybertruck displays pop up at Tesla stores across the U.S.
However, Musk has recently signaled pricing may be significantly higher than previously stated.
Kelley Blue Book "expects" Cybertruck pricing to be around $50,000. For comparison, the Rivian EV pickup starts at around $73,000 with the base Ford F-150 Lightning coming in just below $50,000.
Earlier this month, Tesla added and then quickly ended a $50,000 resale clause for the Cybertruck, in an attempt to prohibit flipping of the vehicle.
Musk has teased different Cybertruck trims, leading to speculation there could be a base single motor Cybertruck around $50,000 while dual motor and trimotor variants could be priced between $60,000-$80,000 or more. However, other observers predict the single motor variant has been scrapped and there will only be the dual and trimotor options.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, a longtime Tesla bull, wrote Tuesday that updated pricing should be available Thursday.
Ives added that, while there have been no 2024 delivery targets, he expects 2,000-3,000 units this quarter with the first 10,000 unit quarter to come in the first half of 2024.
Meanwhile, EPA estimated range on a full charge, charging rates and times, cargo and passenger volume, options packaging and other key information for each trim remain elusive until Thursday.
Originally, Tesla and Musk stated the trimotor Cybertruck would have 500 miles of range with the dual-motor model managing 300 miles and the base rear-wheel version getting 250 miles per charge.
Specs Leak
Images of Cybertruck displays have surfaced on X which claim the vehicle has a max payload of 2,500 pounds and 11,000 pounds of "towing power."
During the 2019 launch, Tesla claimed up to 3,500 pounds of payload. The Cybertruck displays also show the vehicle has an adaptive air suspension system with on-road and off-road modes and an "ultra-hard stainless-steel" so-called exoskeleton, misspelled on the store sign. Musk claims the body of the vehicle is bulletproof, though he has stated the windows are not.
Other unconfirmed spec leaks have the dual-motor Cybertruck weighing 6,670 pounds with the trimotor variant coming in at 6,890 pounds.
Who's Getting The Cybertruck On Thursday
It remains unclear how many Tesla Cybertrucks will be delivered on Thursday and to whom they will be going. In 2017, Tesla held a delivery event for its Model 3 vehicle, delivering the first 30 to Tesla employees.
This has led some to speculate Elon Musk and Tesla could use the same strategy for the Cybertruck. This could keep fourth-quarter costs down as analysts already predict EPS slipping 38% vs last year. Last week, Tesla's global product design director Javier Verdura said at an event in Mexico that 10 Cybertrucks will be delivered on Thursday, according to the Mexican newspaper Milenio.
There are currently around 2 million Cybertruck reservations, according to industry estimates. However, it remains unclear how many delivery-ready Cybertrucks have been produced at the Texas plant.
Tesla Cybertruck: Stock Performance
Tesla stock has gained around 22% in November, with preliminary Tesla Cybertruck deliveries beginning Nov. 30.
The stock is building the right side of a double-bottom base giving it a 278.98 buy point, according to MarketSmith analysis. Tesla stock is around 15% below its official buy point. However, there is a trendline running from July 19 that could offer investors an early entry using Wednesday's high of 252.75.
Since the beginning of 2023, Tesla stock has surged around 100%, broadly outperforming the broader S&P 500 index.
Tesla stock ranks sixth in the 35-stock IBD automaker industry group. The S&P 500 component has an 89 Composite Rating out of a best-possible 99. Tesla stock also has an 85 Relative Strength Rating and an 88 EPS Rating.
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