It appears that automobile reservations have exposed an unpleasant truth: consumer skepticism. According to Automotive News, a recent poll found that EV purchasers who pay for reservations frequently reserve more than one vehicle. And it's all because they don't believe they'll get the car they reserve.
This is true as I know many people who have reserved multiple versions of the Tesla Cybertruck to hedge their bets. I am one of these people with 3 reservations currently. I got so tired of waiting that I built the Cyberbackpack to tide me over. However, I only intend to purchase whichever version is available first. The study also indicates that most reservation holders reserve electric vehicles from multiple OEMs.
Recurrent, a company that focuses on providing consumers and businesses with EV battery health data conducted the study. Recurrent polled over 200 customers who made bookings during April and May. The results were intriguing. The primary message was that there are a lot of reservation holders who don't appear to be genuinely contemplating purchasing all but one of the multiple vehicles they have reserved. People are booking many models at the same time. It also differed based on the brand and model.
Every Tesla model, for example, had consumers who were dead set on making the purchase and purchasing the vehicle although many had more than one Tesla model reserved. On the other hand, in the case of the EV Chevy Silverado, 20% are unsure whether or not they will receive their automobile. Customers were also put off by excessive delays, according to the report.
Buyers who don't appear to be serious about some of the companies they are reserving with had a wide range of options. One buyer has reserved a Nissan Ariya, a Hummer EV, a Chevy Silverado EV, a Volkswagen ID.4, and a BMW iX. However, they only intend to purchase the iX. It appears that they were OK with purchasing another OEM's EV in case the BMW fell through. Other models, such as the KIA EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5, and Subaru Solterra, have reservation holders who are exclusively interested in particular vehicles.
All of this, however, emphasizes how precarious the road to automobile bookings is. The previous several years have demonstrated that it is the way to go for practically every carmaker, particularly when it comes to special editions or "first editions" of models. It provides automakers with free publicity since they can go around and flaunt the thousands of reservations they have for a vehicle: "Look how many people want to purchase our product!"
However, due to the uncertainties surrounding automobile manufacturing right now, many of these customers have no intention of purchasing these vehicles. And, until things return to normal, reservation figures will continue to be overinflated and quite frankly, not representative of the actual demand for the vehicle.
