cvalue13
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Lots of lurkers or new members commenting across the forum something like "how could Tesla be delivering the Cybertruck if they haven't released pricing and specs yet?"
Seemed this needed a thread they can find or be pointed to.
The Nov. 30th "delivery event" is NOT for retail sales to normal customers. Instead, it is a handoff to insiders, employees, and VIPS of maybe a couple of dozen late-stage 'prototypes' ("manufacturing candidates").
So, Tesla can "deliver" absent public release of pricing and specs because these insiders have non-public information about *their* pricing, etc., (which may or may not be the same as pricing for public retail sales).
Historically, after this sort of insider delivery event, it is several weeks or months before Tesla begins the first small tranches of public retail deliveries.
It is no accident that this is confusing, because the point of these "delivery events" from a marketing perspective is to put a stake in the ground as early as possible that the vehicle is real, and coming, to retail customers - even if initial deliveries aren't to retail customers. No need to make that clear, from a marketing perspective. Forever, wikipedia will say "Cybertruck began deliveries in Nov. 2023," even if (subtly) those weren't "real" deliveries (in the way normal customers care about).
Seemed the right spot to collect and summarize that history - which approach changes over the last 10 years, but provides context for this Nov. 30th "delivery" event:
<iframe width="1280" height="720" src="" title="Model 3 Handover Event - July 28, 2017 (HD)" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Seemed this needed a thread they can find or be pointed to.
The Nov. 30th "delivery event" is NOT for retail sales to normal customers. Instead, it is a handoff to insiders, employees, and VIPS of maybe a couple of dozen late-stage 'prototypes' ("manufacturing candidates").
So, Tesla can "deliver" absent public release of pricing and specs because these insiders have non-public information about *their* pricing, etc., (which may or may not be the same as pricing for public retail sales).
Historically, after this sort of insider delivery event, it is several weeks or months before Tesla begins the first small tranches of public retail deliveries.
It is no accident that this is confusing, because the point of these "delivery events" from a marketing perspective is to put a stake in the ground as early as possible that the vehicle is real, and coming, to retail customers - even if initial deliveries aren't to retail customers. No need to make that clear, from a marketing perspective. Forever, wikipedia will say "Cybertruck began deliveries in Nov. 2023," even if (subtly) those weren't "real" deliveries (in the way normal customers care about).
Seemed the right spot to collect and summarize that history - which approach changes over the last 10 years, but provides context for this Nov. 30th "delivery" event:
- Model S (2012): The world's first delivery took place on June 1, 2012 in California, to a Tesla board member and a few other key insiders. Not until June 22, 2012, did formal "retail deliveries begin, but even then those units where "special edition" units that went to key investors, and venture capitalists, including early funders of Tesla. Tesla allocated its first 1,000 units to these early "Signature" and "Signature Performance" limited edition configurations. Regular person, regular edition, Model S's weren't delivered for months after the publicized "delivery" event.
Nonetheless, Tesla's press releases about the June 22nd event and the delivery event itself (video below) did not make clear that these "deliveries" were different than regular, retail, customer deliveries.
- Model X (2015): The first 6 "Founders Series" models were delivered at a market launch event in the Fremont factory on September 29, 2015. One unit went to Musk, the others to insiders. Initial retail deliveries to 'normal' customers wasn't until several months later, around December 2015. In Q4 they delivered 204 units.
Here again, public communications about the "delivery event" did not make clear that these deliveries were to insiders. (The delivery event doesn't appear to have a video available, but photos and live-blog like description of the event were reported.)
- Model 3 (2017): The first 30 Tesla Model 3's where delivered first delivered on July 28, 2017, all to Tesla employees and VIPs. In that quarter, they produced only 220 Model 3's, which were all "special advanced deliveries" (including to a guy with terminal cancer). Deliveries to 'normal' customers weren't reported until December 23, 2017.
Again, press around the "delivery event" in July made no clear distinction regarding 'insider' vs normal retail deliveries. Video of handover event below.
- Model Y (2020): For the Model Y, Tesla bucked it's historical trend and simply began delivering to retail customers March 13, 2020. Note that this was peak initial COVID - things were done differently (including no big press event) likely for a reason.
- Semi (2022): While a different category of vehicle (commercial), thought it worth mentioning that the Semi "delivery event" was in Dec. 2022, to Pepsi and Frito-Lay (PepsiCo’s snack foods subsidiary), in what was essentially an 'insider', co-development, effort. Normal retail customer of Semi's has still not occurred (and Tesla still lists status as "pilot production").
<iframe width="1280" height="720" src="" title="Model S Customer Delivery Event" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe width="1280" height="720" src="" title="Model 3 Handover Event - July 28, 2017 (HD)" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="1280" height="720" src="" title="Tesla Semi Delivery Event" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>Sponsored