WHY SO SECRET? Did It OVERDELIVER Or UNDERWELM? WHY Hasn’t Ford Released The 2021 Bronco Pre-Order Numbers Yet?

$100 reservations are a publicity stunt and nothing more.

But Apple and Tesla announce quickly the numbers. If you want to play the game, you need to follow the leaders.

001

Following is not playing the game. Following is what losers do.

001..Apple and Tesla are 'direct to consumer' businesses, other automakers are not. Big difference.

Certainly not the best time to launch a new vehicle. I would guess people are being conservative with their bank accounts right now and they did not exactly get the response they would have hoped for.

Real orders for the Bronco are strong and people are fully optioning them.

What do 'preorder' numbers even mean? They are not legal contracts. Just because someone puts down $100 for a $80,000 Cybertruck, does not mean that Tesla has a contract for somebody to buy an $80,000 Cybertruck sometime in the (very) distant future.

Preorder deposits are PR puffery plain and simple and the SEC might even deem them misleading if the company doesn't put the appropriate disclaimers in about them having no bearing on future deliveries.

The preorders for the Mach E and the Bronco that Darringer takes (with substantial money down and a signed sales order) are totally different. By the way when Darringer takes a sales order on a Bronco, he is doing so as the "Dealer" and not the manufacturer.

So, if you think about the legal structure here, since Tesla has a direct sales model, if retail customer people give Tesla $100 for a spot on the waiting list, perhaps Tesla has some standing to call it a "pre-order".

The only "preorders" the Ford Motor Company can take are from dealers like Darringer.

If a customer walks into Darringer's store and gives him money for a future Bronco, that customer is Darringer's and Darringer has to source and supply the vehicle to the customer.

That is how the franchised dealer model works and is why Ford cannot really brag about 'pre-orders'.

Really silly question, Autospies.

Understand?

Ford has announced increased production of the Bronco.

We've had people wanting to reserve a Bronco for $100 and our response is $20K.

The other huge flaw in Tesla's business model that this discussion highlights is that at Tesla, nothing happens in "parallel".

They do one product launch at a time (which Tesla heavily promotes), the other product lines get neglected and generally wither on the vine while the attention is focused on the 'NEW THING' then the (simplistic) cycle repeats.

Then two months after the "NEW THING" launches, consumers can usually go to the Tesla website where the "NEW THING" is available to be FedEx'd to their house in about 6 weeks, proving that the '600,000 preorders are basically meaningless.

Tesla is (a) a 'fashion' company (i.e. where the 'hot thing' changes every time cycle (about once a year) and (b) seemingly can only do 'one thing at a time'. Not really a sustainable business model but hard to tell the people who are so excited that their Tesla stock keeps going up.

Word on Wall Street is that Main Street America who are now unemployed (but who are making more money on unemployment than they did at their jobs) but are putting their 'found money' into the casino-stocks in the stock market.

Thoughts?

I love the swindles of Vegas.

Considering the Model 3 came out three years ago and sales are still growing, I don't think the "one thing a year" theory holds true. The 3/Y did cannibalize the S/X, so I would expect Tesla to either refresh those models as the rumor suggest or if there is a dramatic shift in the market, axe them (I hope not for the S).

Pre-orders are really limited because limited demand. Those that are interested will wait for production issues to be fixed and incentives to be piled on, second year.