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.
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Ford’s electric pickup truck is back at the top. The F-150 Lightning is once again the best-selling electric pickup in the US after overtaking the Tesla Cybertruck in the first quarter.
Ford’s F-150 Lightning is the best-selling electric pickup
After launching in 2023, Tesla’s Cybertruck quickly outpaced the Lightning to become America’s top-selling EV pickup last year.
Since Tesla doesn’t break down regional sales, registration data gives us our best estimate. The latest registration data from S&P Global Mobility (via Automotive News) shows that the F-150 Lightning retook the title in March and the first quarter of 2025.
Ford’s electric pickup notched 2,598 registrations in March, topping the Tesla Cybertruck with 2,170. In the first quarter, the F-150 Lightning remained ahead with 7,913 registrations, compared to the Cybertruck’s 7,126.
Although the Cybertruck was the fifth top-selling EV in the US last year, it didn’t even crack the top ten in March. It placed ninth through the first three months of 2025, behind the Volkswagen ID.4.
While Tesla and Ford remained the leaders in the electric pickup market, several new models are gaining momentum. According to the most recent numbers from Cox Automotive, GM sold 2,383 Chevy Silverado EVs and 1,249 GMC Sierra EV models in Q1. Meanwhile, Rivian sold 1,727 R1Ts during the quarter.
Earlier today, Electrek reported that new models, including the Honda Prologue and Chevy Blazer EV, helped drive EV registrations up 20% in the US in March.
Although the Lightning reclaimed the crown from Tesla, Ford’s electric pickup isn’t exactly flying off the lot. Ford reported Lightning sales fell 16% to just 1,740 units in April. Through April 2025, Ford has sold 8,927 electric trucks, down 9% from the 9,833 it handed over last year.
Electrek’s Take
To be fair, Tesla is still ahead by a wide margin in the US. The S&P numbers show Tesla had over 51,000 registrations in March, up 1% after two months of lower YOY growth.
GM’s Chevy surpassed Ford to become the second-best-selling EV brand with nearly 8,500 registrations, an increase of 274% from last year. Ford dropped to third with 7,361 registrations.
Although it’s just one quarter, it’s starting to show how Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s political antics are likely impacting sales. After the Cybertruck’s initial hype, it appears many buyers are opting for traditional pickups, like the F-150 Lighting.
Meanwhile, Ram is delaying its first electric pickup, the 1500 REV, again. Ram is pushing production back until summer 2027, saying it’s “extending the quality validation period.” The plug-in hybrid (PHEV) Ramcharger will also be delayed until the first quarter of 2026.
After pulling the Ramcharger ahead of the fully electric version last year, Stellantis blamed weak demand for EV pickups in the US.
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Environment
Podcast: EV tax credit on chopping block, Tesla’s China problem, Slate gets interest, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss how the GOP plans to kill the EV tax credit, Tesla’s China problem, Slate getting some interest, and more.
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Tesla’s Austin robotaxi fleet will be powered by ‘plenty of teleoperation’ as it “can’t screw up”, according to a new report from Morgan Stanley after meeting with Tesla.
You won’t hear anything negative about Tesla from Morgan Stanley very often.
Morgan Stanley’s Tesla analyst, Adam Jonas, has often been described as a ‘Tesla cheerleader’ on Wall Street for his extremely rosy view of the company. He generally believes whatever Elon Musk claims and adds a slight delay to the CEO’s timeline.
Recently, Jonas met with Tesla with some clients and released a new note that he hinted to be based on what he learned from Tesla during the meeting.
He claims that the planned “robotaxi” rollout in Austin next month is going to use “plenty of tele ops to ensure safety levels”:
Austin’s a ‘go’ but fleet size will be low. Think 10 to 20 cars. Public roads. Invite only. Plenty of tele ops to ensure safety levels (“we can’t screw up”). Still waiting for a date.
‘Tele ops’ stands for teleoperations, meaning that Tesla employees will be able to remotely access Tesla’s vehicles and operate them in some capacity.
Last year, Electrek reported that Tesla started hiring for this teleoperation team before the Robotaxi launch in Austin.
We have been extensively reporting on how much Tesla’s planned robotaxi fleet in Austin diverges from its previously disclosed plans of deploying “unsupervised Full Self-Driving” in its consumer vehicles.
Tesla plans to deploy “10-20” Model Y vehicles to offer ride-hailling services in a geo-fenced area of Austin, Texas using a version of its ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’ (FSD), but instead of being supervised by a driver inside the vehicle, like the current product in consumer vehicles, Tesla is going to used employees to remotely supervise the vehicles.
The service is supposed to launch in June.
Electrek’s Take
I seriously don’t get why anyone could get excited about this. It is going to be a bit better than the current FSD, which has stalled for months as Tesla focuses on optimizing the system for Austin, but it will still basically be supervised – just remotely.
There’s a chance that it won’t even be remote as some believe Tesla will even fumble that timeline and use safety drivers, but I don’t know. I’m about 50/50 on that prediction right now.
Remote supervisors make more sense as Tesla can claim a little victory even though it would be less impressive than what Waymo has been doing for years.
The real goal that Tesla sold to consumers is that their privately owned vehicles would become self-driving without supervision and we are still so far from that. It’s clear that this project is mainly to distract them from that fact.
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