Let me shed some light on this. $5250 is a fraction of how overpriced the One is in 2023. This was expensive in 2022, and I had to seat myself down and reason with myself before I decided not to pay $5,000 deposit about 11 months ago when I got an invitation to change my reservation to the One. Back then, the EV prices kept going up, but they were already at crazy levels. Even with the insane gas prices this time last year, the insane price of EVs was unsustainable.
Everything changed in early January 2023, but it was already changing gradually starting in the fall of 2022. When the Model Y price dropped by $20,000 overnight, people woke up from their delusions. You can see what’s happening to Lucid. They can’t sell their overpriced cars in same volumes they did last year, and they lowered the prices since then too. I read an article yesterday about Rivian vehicles now taking 2 weeks from order to delivery in some markets. It’s only on a limited number of configurations, but it’s already happening. I myself have an R1S reservation, and I was invited to a test drive last week and completed it early this week. I wouldn’t be surprised if I got an invitation to the Rivian shop any day now. What happened to the 3-year wait? Where are all those people who reserved before me? My Rivian reservation isn’t even 1 year old yet. I’ll tell you what happened. People don’t want to be bying $100,000 trucks, driving them off the lot and losing thousands of dollars immediately. They wanted to buy their Riviams, drive them off the lot, and immediately resell them for $20,000 more. It ain’t happening.
The One at $69,000 is a tough sell. It was tough for me to justify its price a year ago, but in todays’s market, it simply doesn’t make sense. At all. So, I’m not surprised that a few people here and there are waking away from their $5,250 deposits. It’s not only the Ocean One price that doesn’t make sense. The overpriced Mach Es, the somewhat overpriced ID.4s, etc. None of them make sense. None of them are in the luxury segment that would have enough people with the cash to pay for the badge. The BMWs, the Mercedes, and the Audis can continue to sell at insane markups just because of the old money that have brand loyalty and only buy the EVs from the luxury brands they have been buying from all their lives. I’ve met these guys in their 70s and 80s driving EVs that cost around $150,000. They love them. They hate Teslas. The premium they paid didn’t matter to them. They are filthy rich.
Neither the Model Y nor the Ocean is in this category of vehicles. The Model Y and the Ocean compete with the ID.4, the Mach E, the IONIQ5, etc. For the wallets of middle-class people. That’s where the price comparison happens. Selling small SUVs in this class in the $60,000 range after the federal tax credit is not easy in 2023. I could walk away from the One reservation, buy a Model Y Performance, and still end up with paying $13,000 less. And I can drive a new Model Y performance tomorrow if I order it today. There is no wait.
