Going back to the F-150 again, it's a status symbol for some people. I could probably go down to a dealer today and grab one with with most/all of what I want,

Going back to the F-150 again, it's a status symbol for some people. I could probably go down to a dealer today and grab one with with most/all of what I want, or wait a little bit and get what I want. A deposit isn't needed. It's a silly comparison anyway as the Tesla is an entirely new thing, vs already established. A better comparison would be if 5 years from Tesla announced a new major revision of the model 3 (similar to what ford did with the F-150 this last year) and got 200k orders immediately. now all this being said, if Ford announced a brand new electric vehicle tomorrow with similar specs/price as the Tesla I really doubt they could get preorders like this.