Pilot production of the long-awaited Cybertruck electric pickup truck at Tesla's Gigafactory in Texas began back in July, but customer deliveries have yet to begin. The founder and head of Tesla, Elon Musk, spoke about the difficulties the company faced in scaling the production of an innovative pickup truck, which brought down the price of Tesla shares by about 10%.
This week, Elon Musk held another conference with investors of Tesla, dedicated to the financial report for the third quarter, and clarified the situation with the launch of the pickup truck: “With the Cybertruck, we dug our own grave,” the chief innovative entrepreneur of planet Earth honestly admitted, “But I think this is our best model in history.”< /p>
Let us recall that the premiere of the Tesla Cybertruck prototype took place in November 2019 and caused a sensation — the car turned out to be truly revolutionary in terms of design and declared characteristics. Initially, the company promised to begin production of the Cybertruck at the end of 2021, but was unable to fulfill this promise, the start of production was postponed several times, and finally, last summer, pickup trucks sailed along the assembly line of the Tesla Gigafactory in Austin (Texas). Alas, production volumes are still small, since Cybertruck has become a real headache for technologists; many operations for its production and equipment had to be literally invented, since Cybertruck has no analogues in the world yet.
The main technological complexity is the body made of thick stainless steel; for its stamping, the world's largest press weighing 9,000 tons was ordered from Italy. In fact, the Cybertruck is an armored car that will not be afraid of blows with a sledgehammer and even light small arms; the windows are also promised to be armored. In theory, such a body can last forever, but it is still unclear how Tesla will certify it and what will happen to passive safety, because it is clear that armored steel and deformation zones that absorb energy upon impact are incompatible.
In addition, the Cybertruck body must be sealed throughout the entire perimeter, since Elon Musk promised that the Tesla pickup will be amphibious and will be able to cross rivers, lakes and even sea straits in calm water. The wheels will most likely act as propellers, so the speed of movement on the water will be low, but in any case, such an unusual feature of the car requires taking into account a lot of specific shipbuilding nuances, and this also means time and money.
The Cybertruck has currently collected more than 1.6 million pre-orders worldwide, and reaching the planned capacity of the Cybertruck assembly line of 250,000 vehicles per year will take, according to Musk, about 18 months. In the coming year, Tesla will produce, at best, just over 125,000 pickup trucks. It turns out that it will take more than six years to satisfy the potential demand, but it is not a fact that the actual demand will be as large — a lot will depend on prices, technical characteristics of the production pickup (they have not yet been announced) and reviews of the first owners.
At the presentation of the Cybertruck prototype, Tesla promised that its base single-engine version would cost $39,900, but it is clear that with inflation and high development and production costs, the starting price will be much higher, while it will be years before the Cybertruck, provided successful market career will begin to pay for itself. The presentation of the production version of the Cybertruck and the start of its shipments to customers are scheduled for November 30 — this will be a truly fateful day for Tesla, as many of the secrets of the miracle pickup truck will finally be revealed and it will be possible to evaluate its potential.
So far, Tesla shares are getting cheaper on news of technological difficulties with the launch of Cybertruck. But not only for this reason: investors are pessimistic due to the decline in Tesla’s quarterly profit by 44% to $1.85 billion, the delay in the construction of the Gigafactory in Mexico due to difficulties in obtaining financing and Elon Musk’s reluctance to substantively discuss problems with the FSD autopilot and shocking investigations of the European media , revealing unpleasant facts about the cynical management of Tesla.
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