Tesla starts offering early Cybertruck delivery for long-term TSLA shareholders

Tesla has put up a webpage allowing TSLA shareholders to register for early Cybertruck delivery, as long as they fit certain criteria. It could give us a hint as to how Cybertruck deliveries are going.

Tesla first started delivering Cybertrucks in November of last year, more than three months ago today. First deliveries were of the limited-edition “Foundation series”, which costs a $20k premium for what seems to be some slight trim differences and the privilege of having early delivery. So far, virtually all confirmed Cybertruck orders have been of the Foundation Series (and most in CA and TX), according to the order tracking list on Cybertruck Owner’s Club.

But now Tesla is adding another method for Cybertruck reservation holders to jump in front of the line – or perhaps an incentive to enhance the seeming exclusivity of the model.

Tesla’s website now has a page where shareholders can register for early delivery, as long as they meet these eligibility requirements:

• The Cybertruck reservation must be in the participant’s name and have been made prior to March 1st, 2024
• The participant has not yet taken delivery of a Cybertruck
• Each participant must provide brokerage statements showing that you owned TSLA shares on Feb. 28, 2021 and owned at least 500 TSLA shares on Feb. 29, 2024
• The brokerage statements for Feb. 29, 2024 must show that you owned at least 50% of the TSLA shares that you owned on Feb. 28, 2021
• Brokerage statements proving shareholdings must clearly show first/last name, statement date, and Tesla shares. All other information may be redacted.

These steps must be taken by Friday, March 22, 2024 11:59 PM CT CDT in order to hop the line, and can only be done once per customer and only in the US or Canada (where it’s coming soon).

As a result, even if a shareholder reserved a Cybertruck after initial deliveries began, they could still hop to the front of the Cybertruck line as long as they’ve held a significant amount of shares for some time.

This isn’t the first time Tesla has given special treatment to shareholders, specifically on something Cybertruck-related. A month before the Cybertruck delivery event, Tesla offered TSLA shareholders entries into a lottery for tickets to attend the event.

The company also recently offered accelerated delivery with referral credits, also for Foundation Series trucks, with a referral reward that sold out within hours.

If you fit the criteria and want to register for early delivery, head over to Tesla’s registration page here.

Electrek’s Take

Could this move also give us a sense of how Cybertruck deliveries are going?

Originally it was rumored that the Foundation Series would encompass only the first 1,000 vehicles. Later, rumors said that this number expanded to 20-25k. The company has not confirmed how many Foundation Series Cybertrucks will be made (which…would certainly be relevant information for collectors to know before spending a $20k premium).

Tesla has claimed that it currently has annual production capacity to produce 125,000 Cybertrucks per year – a number that wasn’t all that believable from the get-go. So, a quarter of a year into production, this would mean that Tesla should have been able to make 30,000+ Cybertrucks by now.

But if the company is just starting to offer early delivery to shareholders, either this means they’re going to produce tens of thousands of Foundation Series trucks, or they’re nowhere near 125,000 production capacity. We’re going to guess it’s the latter.

This move could also signal that the take-rate for Foundation Series invites has been disappointing. Customers may be waiting so they can avoid the $20k premium (they did reserve a $40k truck, after all, so $120k could certainly inspire sticker shock), or may be waiting until early production snags get ironed out. Even reports of a Cybertruck selling for $244k might not entice would-be flippers, given that Tesla has threatened and then followed through on punishing early owners who resell their trucks for profit.

Regardless, we might have expected Foundation Series to be done delivering by now, given that the truck has been out for months already, and given that these invites just went out today which means there are at least several more weeks of Foundation Series deliveries left to go (current order confirmations seem to be getting a March-May delivery timeline).

This is simultaneously a quicker and slower pace than previous Tesla rollouts. For the Model 3, Tesla’s first deliveries started in July of 2017, but those cars only went out to employees and the first big wave of deliveries to the general public only started in late December (that’s when we got ours).

Meanwhile, for the Tesla Semi, those seem to have seen effectively no deliveries since the first trucks were released in December 2022. We still haven’t seen any reports of Semis owned by anyone other than Pepsi or Frito-Lay, though Tesla said in October that about 70 trucks have been built – about double the amount we know are owned by PepsiCo.

But with Cybertruck, members of the general public did start receiving trucks within weeks of the delivery event – which is quicker than both of the above. Though months later, it seems like the delivery numbers may still be coming in a trickle, rather than a flood.