Major tech YouTuber cancels Tesla Roadster order 8 years after paying $50,000 deposit
It has been a long time coming, but Marques "MKBHD" Brownlee has finally thrown in the towel and canceled the order he placed for a Tesla Roadster over eight years ago.
Unfortunately, getting back the $50,000 he paid for a deposit on the vehicle was more challenging than he expected.
You certainly can't blame people for getting excited about new forms of tech, and that's especially the case when it's literally their job to do so.
Marques Brownlee, otherwise known by his YouTube moniker MKBHD, is one of the most popular tech creators across the internet and has amassed over 20,000,000 subscribers on his main channel in the nearly two decades since he started making videos.
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While consumer tech – particularly smartphones – is his main focus and love, he's also shown a lot of love to the world of electric cars, having covered products from companies like Tesla, Porsche, and Rivian in the past.
One particular choice that has stuck with him for years now is his decision to reserve the Tesla Roadster back in 2017 when it was first unveiled, and he put down $50,000 as a sign of his commitment and excitement about the vehicle.
If you've paid any attention to Tesla in the last eight years, you'll probably notice that not only has the Roadster not actually made its way into the hands of those who placed their reservations, but the self-professed "fastest production car ever made" has yet to begin the production that Tesla has boasted about so heavily.
As explained by Electrek, many have come to the realization over the years that the Tesla Roadster will likely never get made. Despite initial plans having 2020 earmarked for a production start point, it has since been delayed in every subsequent year.
That's led Brownlee to announce on a recent episode of the Waveform Podcast that, as per Business Insider, he has finally decided to cancel his reservation for the electric sports car — although he has kept one he got for free as a 'referral reward'.
"Tesla has been sitting with my 50 grand for eight years and hasn't done anything with it, obviously," the tech reviewer explained, adding that "Tesla's just had that money the whole time. I could have done so much with that. I'll do something else with it now."
It wasn't easy for him to get the money back, though, as he had to call up Tesla over the course of several days after being repeatedly met with voicemails. When he finally got through, it appeared as if the person he was talking to had no idea the car he'd paid $50,000 for even existed — and the joke is it technically doesn't.
"There was a really long pause, and they were like, 'A Roadster?'," Brownlee recalled on the podcast. "Then they put me on hold, and they came back and they were trying to figure out who to direct the call to."
It still took him two weeks after this to get his money back, but it eventually came as a check in the mail, giving him back the $50,000 he'd handed over on the promise of a dream over eight years ago.