The initial Cybertruck announcement had the three trim levels priced at $39,990, $49,990, and $69,990. This is a price increase of between $21k and $30k, across the board. The original top-level $69,990 trim also advertised a 500-mile range, which is now down to 320 miles. Were they just making shit up? If I had put a deposit down back in 2019 I'd be pretty upset.

When I look at this webpage, it seems like the initial announcement all over again.

They just want you to put down a deposit, and says "reserve" not "buy".

Yeah I agree. But there are a large number of people (I think 100k+) who put down a deposit between 2019 and today. I realize it's refundable but it's still a slimy thing to do.

> Were they just making shit up?

> So they collected at least $100MM of customer money based on completely made up pricing/specs. WTF.

Correct and correct. And not every manufacturer does this, by the way. The price/specs of the EV I pre-ordered (Volkswagen) did not change much by the time I purchased it.

Yeah, I'm aware. Tesla should at minimum be legally required to pay interest to anyone who requests a refund.

interest on a 100 dollar deposit?

Yes.

I'll elaborate more: yes, because with a million plus deposits at such a low absolute dollar amount, certainly a significant portion of those are going to cancel. The ~15-25% of cumulative interest, while probably not that meaningful to each individual reservation holder, will add up in aggregate, and will hopefully act to disincentivize Tesla from making false claims about its future products again.

I'd be extra pleased if the FTC issued a fine in conjunction with the above, for false advertising.

The Volvo I ordered over a year ago has gone down in price and up on features, according to the spec sheet released today.

Musk promised $35k Model 3, which did in fact exist at first, for a couple months. It's now $39k.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/31/11335272/tesla-model-3-an...

https://www.tesla.com/blog/35000-tesla-model-3-available-now

Inflation adjusted that $35k would be over $43k nowadays so it's actually quite a lot cheaper than promised. And it comes with many features included like Autopilot, which I think was a $3k option back then.

Yep, and it was a better vehicle than originally announced to. The pack was top limited in software too, so it supercharged pretty well.