The Tesla Cybertruck, the first of which will be delivered Thursday four years after its debut, is loved and hated. To fans, it’s a symbol of what Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk stand for: creativity, irreverence, rebellion. Others see it as an act of hubris. It could be both.
Either way, the stakes are high. The carmaker has not produced a new passenger model – other than facelifts or variants of existing vehicles – in more than three years, and margins have been squeezed by price cuts aimed at maintaining market share. The Cybertruck could be Tesla’s magnum opus or its albatross.
Where the Cybertruck ends up in the history books (or more likely, Wikipedia) will depend on the company’s ability to navigate production issues and customer reception — especially if it’s not received lovingly once it’s in owners’ hands . And of course, there’s the other hurdle of producing a vehicle on a scale that people love without losing money.
The next important step in this precarious journey begins on 2 p.m. CT Nov. 30, when Tesla is expected to deliver the first of its long-awaited Cybertrucks to patient customers. The angular, stainless steel, futuristic-looking trucks will be unveiled and delivered during Thursday afternoon’s event at the Tesla Gigafactory in Austin — and likely with all the pomp, circumstance and electronic dance music we’ve come to expect from Tesla.
A number of Tesla shareholders, Cybertruck customers and other VIP guests will attend in person. The event will be streamed live for everyone else on a special landing page and probably on him YouTube channel and of course, in X.
The bets
If Tesla pulls off the Cybertruck, it may prove it’s still a revolutionary at heart, with the vision and dedication to break the norm. It could also give it a much-needed boost and set it apart from its legacy rivals forever.
But the truck has faced many challenges and delays in making it to production. Musk admitted that building the Cybertruck was difficult due to its unique design and stainless steel body, which has According to reports led to issues such as gaps between panels. We don’t yet know how much the Cybertruck will cost, but Musk warned that it will take time to become a profitable vehicle for the automaker.
During Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call, Musk told investors that Tesla “dug our grave with the Cybertruck.” He said scaling up will be tough and it will take at least 18 months for the pickup to be profitable. The truck has already taken a chunk out of Tesla’s profits as the automaker’s operating expenses rose 43% year over year. Musk has said Giga Texas will be able to produce about 250,000 Cybertrucks a year starting in 2025, but his timelines are often lopsided and unreliable.
Stainless steel frame: A risky bet
Musk’s goal for the Cybertruck was to be surprising, bold, and build something that no one would expect because it didn’t look like any other pickup truck out there.
“I don’t care if anybody buys it,” Musk told his design team in 2019, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of the billionaire executive. “We don’t make a traditional boring truck. We can always do it later. I want to make something that is nice. Like, don’t resist me.”
As he and chief designer Franz von Holzhausen came up with design concepts, they talked about something revolutionary in the vehicle’s form and construction process, which hadn’t changed for pickups in 80 years. This made them turn their focus to the material used to make it. Rethinking the material and even the physical structure of the vehicle opened their minds to new designs.
After discussing the possibility of aluminum and titanium, they settled on stainless steel, according to information revealed in Isaacson’s biography. Charles Kuehmann, vice president of materials engineering at both Tesla and SpaceX, had developed an extremely hard stainless steel alloy that was “cold rolled” instead of requiring heat treatments. The team thought it was powerful enough and cheap enough to be used for both rocket ships and trucks. The steel body would not need paint, could resist dents and could carry the vehicle’s structural load without relying on a frame.
“Let’s build the power on the outside, make it an exoskeleton, and hang everything else from the inside,” Musk told his engineers.
The stainless steel construction also meant Tesla couldn’t use its stamping machines to sculpt carbon fiber into body panels with curves and shapes. The truck would have to be sharp and angular, which was fine with Musk, who had been inspired by vehicles like those in the video games Cyberpunk 2077 and Halo, as well as movies like “Blade Runner” and “The Spy Who Loved Me”. ” In fact, Musk bought the 1970s Lotus Esprit used in the James Bond movie for almost $1 million and showed it to the Tesla design studio.
However, the choice to use stainless steel created its own unforeseen problems and has caused the Cybertruck’s launch to be delayed. In theory, building a truck body with stainless steel panels should create a smooth, angular design. In practice, it is difficult to properly align these panels without exposing large gaps. It is also difficult to level the steel panels, References The Wall Street Journal, citing people who worked on the pickup. The metal is produced in rolls, like giant rolls of paper towels, so when unrolled, it has a tendency to spring back into its rolled form.
Once the Cybertruck is on the road, customers may face their own challenges. While the metal is likely to make it more resistant to dents and scratches, if it cracks, it will likely be a nightmare to repair. Tesla already has a bad reputation for poor service, with limited service centers, limited inventory for replacement parts, poor communications, and long wait times for repair appointments. Given the difficulty of getting the Cybertruck into production, repairing one will probably be just as frustrating.
Bulletproof truck?
During Tesla’s initial Cybertruck unveiling event in 2019, Musk asked its chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, to demonstrate the power of the truck’s “armor glass” by throwing a metal ball at the window. Instead of bouncing off, it broke the window significantly. They tried again with the back window, leaving another baseball-sized shard in the glass.
Musk said he wants the Cybertruck to be bulletproof. Could we have another, potentially louder and more dangerous, demonstration at this week’s event? When in Texas…
Only 10 Cybertrucks were delivered
Tesla’s global director of product design, Javier Verdura, said in a keynote speech in November that the company plans to deliver 10 Cybertrucks at the event, according to a Mexican newspaper. Milenio. As Tesla has done in the past, these first 10 trucks will likely go to Tesla employees and possibly a high-profile individual. For example, during the Tesla Model X event in 2015, early investors Ira Ehrenpreis and Steve Jurvetson took the stage to pick up their cars.
Tesla could not be reached for confirmation.
The automaker often delivers only a few cars during delivery events. A year ago at Tesla’s Semi delivery event, the automaker gave away about five trucks to Pepsi. And in 2017, the initial Model 3 delivery event delivered just 30 cars, mostly to employees.
Whether 10 is an accurate number, we can also assume that a small number of first units will be delivered based on Tesla’s order agreement that threatened to sue Cybertruck buyers who resold the vehicle without a license during their first year of ownership. Tesla quickly walked back that language, but automakers typically only include such clauses if they have a limited amount of vehicles.
While Tesla has clearly set a precedent for anticlimactic delivery events, customers who have been waiting for this day for years may still be disappointed by the modest offering. Musk estimated that the Cybertruck has about 1 million reservations during Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call.
Tesla first announced its Cybertruck in 2019, claiming the first deliveries would be scheduled for 2021. The automaker has continued to push back production and delivery dates due to supply chain headaches and challenges in building the unique vehicle.
