Back in November following Tesla’s Cybertruck announcement, we published a note titled Cybertruck Misses Core Truck Buyer, But Still An Incremental Positive. Following 22 conversations with midwest-based construction pros, a core truck-buying segment, we’ve realized we were wrong, as early indications point to them hitting the mark.
Surprisingly, Cybertruck is building support with construction professionals. We now believe the segment will account for 15% of Tesla units in its first fully ramped year (likely 2023 given it ships late in 2021). We previously estimated that Cybertruck would account for 5% of units. Our key takeaways from the conversations:
- Something bigger is going on. Stepping back, we left with the feeling that the speed of EV adoption is setting up to trend faster than we anticipated. We entered the conversations expecting to hear clear concerns about EV’s shortcomings. Instead, 10 of the 22 said their next truck will be electric, 4 undecided, and 8 expecting to stay with an internal combination. In other words, two-thirds of construction pros are positive or neutral on EV’s.
- Tesla’s product awareness is favorable with 11 of the 22 claiming they were aware that Tesla had announced an electric pick up, and only 4 of 22 could name the truck.
- Intent to buy was higher than we expected, with 5 of the 22 intending to purchase a Cybertruck in the next 5 years. While there’s a gap between intending to buy a truck and actually purchasing a $45-$55k vehicle, the intent to buy was higher than we expected.
- Pros think Cybertruck is more expensive than it actually will be. We showed a photo of Cybertruck and added that a base model Ford 150 starts at $29k. Next, we asked them to guess Cybertruck’s base model price. The average was $84k, with a median of $80k and a range of $45k-$220k. The actual base model pricing is expected to be $40k (2WD option). The 4WD with full self-driving version is priced at $57k. We expect the average selling price with add-ons will be closer to $55k.
- Last, we discussed how they would feel driving up to a job site in a Cybertruck (with the photo visible to them) and asked, given its brutalist design, would you be embarrassed to show up to work in this truck. Only 3 of 22 said they would be embarrassed.