Which list price?
Which list? People who bought when the car sold for 92K or 98K have already "profited" from same the car that now sells for 109K. (If they whish to part with it!).
That does not even count the possibility of selling the car for 50 to 100 percent more to an late-comer who does not want to wait two years for the Electric Dream.
I was thinking of list price at the time the car is delivered. Any increase in list goes to Tesla. The contract allows Tesla to raise the list.
I find it easier to think of appreciation occuring after you take delivery of a car separately. (At the time of delivery, you make a decision to sell the car or keep it, and I think of that potential gain separately.)
Returning to your example profit on the investment of the $60,000 deposit and taking your example of 50%-100% profit (on list price I presume) and $110,000 as the list at the time of delivery, a 50% profit on the list price would be $55,000. This would be 91.67% profit for the year or so that the $60,000 is invested. 100% profit on list at the time of delivery would be $110,000, or 183% on the investment. (Any transaction costs such as sales tax is not considered in the above. The final payment to Tesla is assumed to be at little or no risk and for a short period.)
91.67% or 183% profit on investment is either good or bad depending upon how you evaluate the risk that you will lose your deposit because Tesla can neither repay you or deliver a car, the time period, and how sure you are of the estimate of profit.
Assuming you assign no risk to the final payment to Tesla, with a $55,000 profit on a $60,000 investment, 57% probability that you will not lose your money (43% chance of losing your money) is about a break-even proposition ignoring the use of money. If the probability of NOT losing your investment is higher, the investment looks better from a financial point of view. A $110,000 profit is about a break-even if you think the the chance that you will not lose money is about 36% (64% chance of loss).
To illustrate the calculation, assume that you judge the chance that you will get neither the car nor your deposit back at 50%. For a break-even investment your reward needs to be a 100% profit. If you make two $100 investments with a chance of success of 50% on each and a 100% reward if successful, statistically you should break even. Statistically you should win one investment and get $200 back (a 100% profit) on it and lose the other investment and get back zero. Result: invest a total of $200 and get back a total of $200, equals a break-even (ignoring time value of money).
The probabilities used above for for illustration only.