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Electric pickup buyers hold multiple reservations as delivery date uncertainty looms: survey

Credit: Cybertruck Owner’s Club

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With so many electric pickups set to hit the market in the coming years, consumers are playing their hands by holding reservations on multiple EV trucks due to the uncertainty of when they might be delivered.

A new survey from Recurrent shows that “about 89% of Tesla Cybertruck reservations overlap with another truck pre-order, and 100% of Ford F-150 and Chevrolet Silverado reservations also pre-ordered another vehicle on this list. ”

It is no secret a major focus of many electric automakers in 2021 and 2022 was the EV pickup. With trucks being such a popular body style in the United States and elsewhere, companies were fending to offer the first EV pickup, but also the most effective one. While Rivian’s R1T was the first electric pickup on the market, the GMC Hummer EV joined the list shortly after. However, notable newcomers and worthy opponents are coming, as the Tesla Cybertruck and Chevrolet Silverado EV are both expected to hit production lines in the next year. A breakdown of how many reservations each truck has, and how prospective EV truck buyers are playing their multiple pre-orders, shows the anticipation for the emergence of the electric pickup market.

“We knew that 2022 would be the year of the electric truck, and the year has not disappointed us, at least as far as pre-orders go,” Scott Case, CEO and co-founder of Recurrent, said. “But I’m also taking pre-order number claims by manufacturers with a grain of salt, because clearly not all of those orders are solid. Shoppers should not be scared off by long pre-order waits if they know the vehicle you want.”

It has been reported on numerous occasions that the Tesla Cybertruck has accumulated a massive number of pre-orders: 1.27 million+, according to Recurrent’s research. The F-150 Lightning is second with 200,000 pre-orders, and the Rivian R1T and R1S and Hummer EV have 90,000 and 65,000, respectively.

However, the breakdown of how these pre-orders are being played is most interesting. Recurrent surveyed over 200 EV shoppers in a partnership with AAA Washington to see what EVs buyers have pre-ordered and which they intend to actually purchase. The research showed that Tesla vehicles have 100 percent order fulfillment, while other vehicles, like the Chevy Silverado EV, only had a 20 percent fulfillment rate.

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“In the case of Tesla, there is a non-refundable order fee that may weed out some impulsive reservations, as well as the knowledge that the market is hot enough to resell your order before you even take delivery,” the study said. Recurrent attributed the outliers above to three factors:

  • Uncertainty on delivery time – or delivery at all – may cause some shoppers to modulate their enthusiasm for certain vehicles. Of course, the Tesla Cybertruck, with its seemingly infinite production delays, comes to mind here.
  • Refundable reservations mean that customers can express interest in many cars and make the decision when they see when, and what, they can actually drive off in.
  • With all the buzz around electric vehicles, manufacturers may be incentivized to make reservations easy for shoppers in order to pump up their numbers, even if these reservations don’t all turn into sales

In general, however, EV truck buyers are more likely to have multiple reservations. Recurrent says the strategy of over-ordering allows buyers to keep their options open, especially as production and delivery dates have not yet been solidified by the manufacturers, which gives the reservations holders more time to analyze their decisions. However, 89 percent of Cybertruck reservations overlap with another EV truck order, while 100 percent of Ford F-150 Lightning and Chevy Silverado EV orders are paired with another vehicle on the list Recurrent put together.

Credit: Recurrent

Additionally, the study found that Tesla brand loyalty runs deep. “Recurrent found that many families have gone all-in on Tesla. Around 50% of those who have reserved both a Telsa Cyber Truck and a Tesla car model plan to redeem both,” it said.

Tesla reservations do not seem to overlap with other brands, which would align with the company’s history of brand loyalty. “If you’ve reserved a Ford F-150, Rivian, or Chevy Silverado, chances are good that you may also have reserved a Tesla Cybertruck,” Recurrent’s study added. “But, if you’re interested in any of the new, non-truck options on this list, there is virtually no overlap with the Tesla brand. There is a clear chasm between non-Tesla cars and Tesla reservations.”

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Tesla is ending Cybertruck production

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Credit: diagnosticdennis/Instagram and @smile__no via Tesla Owners of Santa Clarita Valley/X

Tesla is ending Cybertruck production sometime in mid-2027, according to CEO Elon Musk.

Musk made the announcement on X last night, which came as a shock to many. He said that the Cybertruck will end production “to make room for increased Cybercab production” at Gigafactory Texas.

It is a huge blow to the fans of Tesla who have come to love the Cybertruck and identify with it as a symbol of their fandom. It has been the best-selling electric pickup, but it has had an underwhelming sales performance in terms of what was expected. This is mostly due to Tesla not meeting the prices it planned to offer the Cybertruck, as its unveiling and actual release were four years apart.

Overall, the responses were mixed. Some fans understood the move toward Cybercab production, especially as Tesla is truly pushing the autonomous future through its Robotaxi platform. However, others did not understand it.

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“Damn, how many Cybercabs do you guys need?” one response read. Another said it was “Sad but understandable.”Even analyst Gary Black had responded to the news, stating he hoped Tesla planned to replace it with a traditional pickup design.

It doesn’t seem like that will be the case.

Tesla is so hell-bent on delivering autonomy and eventually providing a driverless service that owning a car seems like an arbitrary idea, according to their thesis. Instead, Cybercabs will be available to pick you up and drop you off on demand, safely, without any human help.

As a result, Tesla has thinned its lineup considerably, and one can only ask where the vehicle lineup goes from here. Eventually, it seems like Cybercab could be the only vehicle that Tesla will sell.

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SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th

SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15 and its first ship catch.

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SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15, the mission the company plans to use for its first attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower.

SpaceX Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev shared the date on stage at the UP.Summit on Thursday, according to Ars Technica’s Eric Berger, who was in attendance. It is the first launch target to come directly from a SpaceX executive. Until now, the public schedule had relied on FAA air traffic planning slides, which listed Flight 15 for no earlier than November 8 and later November 12. SpaceX has not posted an official mission page yet, and no launch time has been shared.

The date lands inside the window Elon Musk sketched out last month. Speaking at Giga Texas on October 10, Musk said the flight would “probably launch a little bit before Thanksgiving,” as Teslarati reported. On SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call ten days later, he confirmed that Flight 15 would try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the ship, and put the odds of a successful ship catch at “more likely than not.” SpaceX also aired an animation of the maneuver during that webcast, showing the ship swinging vertical over Starbase before dropping into the tower’s chopsticks.

The hardware is ready. Booster 22 fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for a full duration static fire at Pad 2 on October 25. Ship 42 followed with a single engine burn simulating a deorbit maneuver on October 26 and a 60 second firing of all six engines the next day, according to NASASpaceflight. Ship 42 had already rehearsed the catch in September, when the Pad 2 arms lifted it into position and crews connected the quick disconnect arm while the vehicle hung from the tower.

The remaining hurdle is regulatory. The FAA’s Starship page does not yet list a Flight 15 license. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in October that, after “significant constructive engagement with the FAA,” she expects the license to cover a return to the launch site and a tower catch for both stages. Bringing the ship home means a reentry path that heads toward land, rather than ending over open ocean as every Starship flight so far has.

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SpaceX has caught Super Heavy three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8, but the ship comes back from orbital velocity and has never been caught. Flight 14 on September 28 was the first Starship to reach orbit, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down despite an early engine shutdown that Musk blamed on engine computer software.

Musk has called a successful ship catch “the first time that there’s been full recovery of an orbital class rocket,” and he has already named the step after it: a Flight 16 where both the booster and the ship fly again. NASASpaceflight reports that Ship 43, the next vehicle in line, is set for static fire testing in December.

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EVgo taps Tesla Superchargers for mass charging expansion

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Credit: EVgo

EVgo has tapped Tesla Superchargers for its most recent efforts to expand its charging presence in the United States, a move that seems logical based on the effectiveness of the automaker’s own infrastructure.

EVgo opened its first Supercharger site in Illinois, a 12-stall station near downtown Chicago at 3145 South Ashland Avenue in the Riverside Square & River’s Edge center, right beside a grocery store. This marks the start of the company’s plan to deploy hundreds of Supercharger stalls across the United States, primarily at grocery-anchored Regency Centers properties where drivers can shop, eat, or run errands while they charge.

The new location uses Tesla’s Magic Dock technology so both NACS and CCS vehicles can plug in natively without drivers needing to carry their own adapters. Peak power reaches 325 kW at this site, with pricing set between $0.25 and $0.35 per kWh depending on the hour—the same rate for Tesla and non-Tesla drivers.

The stalls also appear in Tesla’s in-car navigation and Trip Planner, making them easy for Tesla owners to find and route to. Illinois has seen EV registrations rise nearly 60 percent over the past two years, and EVgo’s broader network has experienced more than 700 percent growth in charging demand over three years, so the timing fits the market’s trajectory.

Choosing Tesla hardware through the Supercharger for Business program turns out to have been a smart, practical move.

Tesla’s V4 stalls and cabinets deliver high, reliable power with a proven track record of strong uptime, while Magic Dock delivers true dual-standard compatibility in one package. Because the sites show up in Tesla’s navigation tools, EVgo instantly gains visibility among millions of existing Tesla drivers, which should raise utilization and help the company double its addressable market as more vehicles adopt NACS. EVgo still owns the stations and sets pricing, yet benefits from Tesla’s established hardware, longer cables, and operational support.

The result is faster, lower-risk infrastructure expansion that serves every EV driver—Tesla or otherwise—with convenient, high-power charging at everyday retail locations. For drivers, that means fewer adapters, more predictable stops, and a denser network just as electric vehicles become everyday transportation.

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