Tesla’s $1,500 surfboard sells out in a day
Unusual marketing stunt proves to be as popular as the firm’s electric cars
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Electric car giant Tesla has expanded its zero-emissions range in an unexpected way by launching a limited-edition surfboard.
The now sold-out board was developed by the company’s design team in collaboration with surfing brand Lost Surfboards and craftsman Matt Biolos.
Each board is bespoke, but it’s not yet known what options buyers have when speccing their surfboard.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Tesla says the board comes with a mix of the same “high-quality” matte and gloss finishes that are used on their production cars. The deck of the board is made from lightweight carbon fibre embossed with the company’s logo.
The board, which is limited in quantity (only 200 have been made), has a price tag of $1,500 (£1,140) before tax. This puts it at the “higher end” of the surfboard pricing scale, says Tech Crunch.
The majority of boards offered by Lost are available for between $700-$800 (£530-£600), the tech company says. Products from other high-end surfboard makers such as Ripcurl can be bought for around $750 (£570).
Now that all 200 Tesla boards have sold out a handful of them have cropped up on eBay. Thanks to their scarcity, some come with a hefty premium.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
According to The Verge, surfers who missed out on the flash sale will need to spend between $2,000 and $5,000 (£1,520-£3,810) to get their hands on one through the auction site.
While surfboards may seem a little off-piste for a company specialising in electric vehicles, Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, is no stranger to unorthodox marketing stunts.
The California-based firm offers child-sized versions of their electric cars, for example, that include a battery power supply.
In February, Musk’s tunnelling venture, The Boring Company, sold £7m worth of “novelty” flamethrowers within the space of four days, Reuters reports.
Remarkably, The Boring Company produced 20,000 examples of the $500 (£350) flamethrower, far more than the arguably less dangerous surfboards.
-
Film reviews: ‘Send Help’ and ‘Private Life’Feature An office doormat is stranded alone with her awful boss and a frazzled therapist turns amateur murder investigator
-
Movies to watch in Februarythe week recommends Time travelers, multiverse hoppers and an Iraqi parable highlight this month’s offerings during the depths of winter
-
ICE’s facial scanning is the tip of the surveillance icebergIN THE SPOTLIGHT Federal troops are increasingly turning to high-tech tracking tools that push the boundaries of personal privacy
-
Moltbook: the AI social media platform with no humans allowedThe Explainer From ‘gripes’ about human programmers to creating new religions, the new AI-only network could bring us closer to the point of ‘singularity’
-
Will regulators put a stop to Grok’s deepfake porn images of real people?Today’s Big Question Users command AI chatbot to undress pictures of women and children
-
Inside a Black community’s fight against Elon Musk’s supercomputerUnder the radar Pollution from Colossal looms over a small Southern town, potentially exacerbating health concerns
-
X update unveils foreign MAGA boostersSpeed Read The accounts were located in Russia and Nigeria, among other countries
-
What's Linda Yaccarino's legacy? And what's next for X?Today's Big Question An 'uncertain future' in the age of TikTok
-
X CEO Yaccarino quits after two yearsSpeed Read Elon Musk hired Linda Yaccarino to run X in 2023
-
Musk chatbot Grok praises Hitler on XSpeed Read Grok made antisemitic comments and referred to itself as 'MechaHitler'
-
Another Starship blast sets back Musk's Mars hopesSpeed Read Nobody was killed in the explosion, which occurred in south Texas