Prospective Tesla Cybertruck owners hoping to pick up their electric SUV in 2023 might be out of luck. Unless they’re one of a handful of people whose trucks are actually built in time.
After previously saying that it would go into production in 2023, Musk now says that the number of Tesla Cybertrucks actually available for delivery will be small thanks to “very slow” output. Musk was talking during an earnings call in which Musk also confirmed that production will kick off “sometime this summer.”
All of this means that the mass production that everyone’s been waiting for isn’t actually going to begin until 2024, meaning that the chance of you seeing a Cybetruck trundling down the road in 2023 is probably about as likely as seeing one in 2022. Or 2021. Going all the way back to when the thing was announced in 2019, in fact.
That 2019 announcement has become something of a lightning rod for Tesla and its manufacturing issues. The truck was supposed to have gone into production multiple times at this point, but it continues to be pushed back.
As Engadget notes, that’s thanks, at least in part, to the way the thing will be built. “ts signature cold-rolled steel body is said to be extra-tough, but also requires manufacturing techniques not normally used for cars,” the outlet points out. The majority of Cybertruck production is set to happen at the Giga Texas factory as a result.
Even when the Cybertruck does go into production, nobody knows how much it will cost. Despite being announced as a vehicle starting at less than $40,000 in 2019, that price has now presumably gone out of the window thanks to an onrushing global recession, inflation, and other economic instabilities. And that’s before you talk about how difficult it has been for Tesla to source parts thanks to shortages across the market.
