Electric truck consumers are placing more pre-orders than what they intend to buy, study finds

Electric truck consumers are using refundable reservations to pre-order more than one EV and keep their options open, according to a new survey conducted by battery health analysis firm Recurrent.

The study, released Monday, surveyed more than 200 consumers who had at least one pending EV reservation between April and May and found purchasers tended to over-order electric trucks due to concerns over whether the manufacturer would actually fulfill the purchase. Eighty-nine percent of Tesla Cybertruck reservations overlapped with another truck pre-order, and 100 percent of Ford F-150 Lightning and Chevrolet Silverado EV pre-orders customers had also reserved another vehicle, according to the results.

"There's just a ton of pent-up demand for an electric pickup truck," Recurrent CEO Scott Case told Automotive News. "The pickup is this iconic vehicle type and category for the United States, and so, not surprisingly, there's a whole bunch of manufacturers that are racing to get there first and be the biggest player. However, none of them have come out yet in scale." This

This trend wasn't necessarily true for electric car reservations, according to the study. Recurrent found automobile purchasers tended to be more selective in the brand they pre-ordered and were more likely to place standalone reservations. Case attributed this to consumers having more confidence that their car pre-orders will be fulfilled, which allowed them to be more particular about the brand of vehicle they received.

The study also showed increased brand loyalty to Tesla. While consumers who reserved Tesla's Cybertruck tended to have other pre-orders, according to Case, those who pre-ordered Teslas specifically were less likely to reserve any other brand of vehicle before the Tesla was delivered.

"With the Cybertruck, that's a bit of a different story because it's sort of lumped into that electric pickup truck category of, 'Oh, which one's gonna show up?' " Case said. "But I do think that there's that brand loyalty that's being developed for the non-Cybertruck vehicles."

The study found that nearly 50 percent of consumers who had reserved either the Tesla Cybertruck or another vehicle intended to redeem the pre-order.