The Tesla Cybertruck was one of the most hyped and most overdue vehicle launches in recent memory. Earlier this year, prices were sky-high as every two-bit YouTuber and influencer rushed to get their hands on the shiny silver triangle. Fast forward to August, and things were looking more bleak. With the Cybertruck now rounding out its first full year on sale, it’s worth taking a look at where it stands.
In some regards, it appears ill winds are blowing Tesla’s way. There was huge public interest and controversy early on. The Cybertruck story grew ever bigger with each subsequent delay, and anticipation reached a fever pitch. But the initial novelty of the truck, to many, wore off once it hit the streets, especially since pricing/performance wasn’t what was initially claimed. The truck now has to sell in real numbers, quarter after quarter, if it’s to live up to its real promise. It’s not clear if it’s measuring up to expectations, though at the same, Tesla remains head of the pack in the US EV market, and the Cybertruck is streaking ahead of its competitors in the marketplace.
It’s a complex situation, which leads us to ask the obvious question. Is the Cybertruck a hit or not?
Demand Problems?
The Cybertruck’s sales numbers were brought to our attention this week by Troy Teslike over on Twitter. He’s a data-cruncher who reports on Tesla’s delivery and production numbers, and shares his findings via Patreon. Sourcing his figures from vehicle registrations and production VIN data, he estimates that the company has produced 30,582 Cybertrucks in total as of Q3 2024. In that same time, the company has delivered just 21,450 examples.
Do the math, and you’re left with 9,132 Cybertrucks sitting in inventory. Given there have been just over 20,000 sales thus far, that seems like quite a lot of Cybertrucks left over, especially given that Tesla CEO Elon Musk boasted that the company received over one million reservations in an earnings call last year. Indeed, it was claimed that Tesla had capacity to sell 125,000 trucks in 2024, with the potential to boost that to 250,000 units in 2025. That’s a lot of trucks.
As it stands, it’s not clear that that level of demand still exists. Part of this is likely due to Tesla’s early sales strategy. It has focused on selling the most expensive models first, with a $20,000 premium on the Foundation Series models. As Business Insider wrote in October: “Starting at this higher price point likely helped Cybertruck deliver its first profitable quarter, helping Tesla’s overall margins. Still, the introduction of more affordable trims will be crucial to the truck’s continued success.”
Hi everyone. Based on vehicle registration data for sales and VIN data for production, Tesla had produced 30,582 Cybertrucks by the end of Q3 2024 and delivered 21,450, leaving 9,132 in inventory. Some of these were likely used as showroom models, so I estimate around 9,067… pic.twitter.com/YMqNBAEdji
— Troy Teslike (@TroyTeslike) December 14, 2024
It does appear that wobbles in customer interest could be at play here. “It looks like Tesla intentionally built up this inventory, expecting to sell most of it after cutting prices by $20,000 in early October when they discontinued the Foundation Series and launched the regular version,” said Troy on Twitter. “However, there seem to be some demand challenges this quarter, as production was paused for a few days earlier this month.”
Indeed, Business Insider reported earlier this month that Tesla had asked employees to take multiple days off this month, with workers claiming their schedules had been inconsistent since October. However, other outlets have claimed that the time off was merely due to a tunnel construction project on the site.
Troy isn’t the only one that has noticed something is amiss, either. This week, InsideEVs published an article entitled “The Tesla Cybertruck Might Have An Inventory Problem.” The outlet notes that “dozens” of limited-edition Foundation Series models currently languish in Tesla’s inventory. The Foundation Series was officially only available up until October. As the name suggests, it was specifically targeted at early adopters of the polarizing model. It cost a premium of $20,000 on top of a regular Cybertruck to get one, with Tesla throwing in Foundation Series badging, full access to Tesla’s Full-Self Driving driver assist, and various other add-ons. Despite its supposed exclusivity, it appears plenty of Foundation Models are still in stock. InsideEVs noted that new examples were available in at least seven states across the country, using Tesla’s own inventory page.
Meanwhile, Electrek has reported Tesla has allegedly been de-badging Foundation Series models to sell them in Canada. The differences between the Foundation Series and the regular Cybertruck are pretty much just badging and software access to certain features. Thus, a mere cosmetic change would allow the company to sell the trucks at a more attractive price point sans the expected $20,000 markup on the Foundation series. This could make sense, as merely discounting Foundation Series models would see serious blowback for Tesla from its die-hard fans that paid a premium to get in first.
Reports from the ground seem to support some of the inventory issue reports. Head over to Twitter, and you’ll find a smattering of posts over the last few months from people spotting masses of Cybertrucks holed up in parking lots.
Todays look at the Stagnant CyberTruck corral at the Tesla location I pass daily pic.twitter.com/8LmEVrvT9I
— Zerin "Happy Honda Days" Dube (@SpeedSportLife) December 4, 2024
This is the 4th or 5th parking lot I've seen full of Cybertrucks since the beginning of October, or the start of Q4.
I think it's safe to say that the Cybertruck is a flop & could be a loss leader for Tesla. $TSLA https://t.co/oEPRB0ZWcD
— Motorhead (@BradMunchen) October 30, 2024
[Ed Note: It’s worth quoting Reuters’ story from this morning titled “Tesla’s 2024 deliveries growth might hinge on Musk’s unorthodox Cybertruck.” Here are a few quotes from it:
Tesla does not break out sales of Cybertruck – but the S&P data showed U.S. registrations of the pickup falling to 4,335 in September and 4,039 in October, from 5,428 in August. Through October, the total was 31,451. Analysts at Bernstein expect 50,000 of them by the end of the year.“The Cybertruck is not doing enough to bring the brand up,” said Tom Libby, S&P Global Mobility’s associate director of industry analysis.
Two versions currently available for sale are the Cyberbeast at close to $100,000 and an all-wheel-drive at about $75,000.Tesla has also stopped taking reservations, instead allowing buyers to place orders directly. Some Cybertrucks are even available in its inventory for immediate delivery – moves that according to analysts suggest a problem with demand.
The company also started offering the Cybertruck on lease starting at $999 a month in November, before reducing the price to $899 a month.
“When you see those types of deals, they are basically an indication of softening demand,” S&P’s Libby said. But he said it was too early to conclude there was a long-term demand challenge.
All that sounds bleak, right? And yet, at the same time, the Cybertruck has also become somewhat of a trailblazer. While it seems it’s not quite living up to its promised potential, cheaper models aren’t yet available and also, the stats below show us just how well it’s doing versus its rivals.
In October, The Cybertruck became the third best-selling EV in the country, eclipsing the Ford Mustang Mach-E on its way to the podium. It sits behind—you guessed it—the Model 3 and Model Y, both from the Tesla stable. It might not be selling in the six-figure range yet, but it’s apparently making the most of the limited market for EVs in America right now.
More than that, it’s also the best-selling EV pickup truck currently on sale. Tesla sold 16,692 Cybertrucks in Q3, the model’s biggest quarter yet. Contrast that to the Rivian R1T, which sold 7,245 units, or the Ford F-150 Lighting, which sold just 7,162 examples. The Chevrolet Silverado EV lags even further behind, with just 1,995 units sold in the same period.
By those measures, you could call the Cybertruck a solid success. Doubling the sales your nearest rival is not bad at all. Even if Tesla has seen some wobbles in demand, they’ve been minor compared to its competitors. It may have stopped production for three days earlier this month, but that’s nothing compared to the 6 week shutdown in F-150 Lightning production.
Overall, it’s a funny state of affairs. On the one hand, the Cybertruck is, for now, the best-selling EV pickup in the US. At the same time, it seems outwardly that Tesla is not selling as many as it would have hoped.
Before the production pause, Tesla's order page showed the Cybertruck was available for immediate delivery in most of the US. It still shows December delivery for new orders, which suggests there is no order backlog.https://t.co/RoT1D63LsV
— Troy Teslike (@TroyTeslike) December 14, 2024
I ordered my base spec in Seattle on 11/19 and took delivery on 12/7. The VIN was assigned on 11/20 but the truck was just built and still in TX. Seattle did have Multiple foundation series trucks in the storage lot.
— Peter Benson (@pbensonsea) December 14, 2024
In some areas, it appears possible to get a Cybertruck very quickly—suggesting demand has dried up.
Still delivering Foundation only here in Canada. No words about my reservation yet. So demand, I dont think so…
— MathG ????⚡️???? (@Mathg13) December 14, 2024
In other areas, some claim to still be holding unmet reservations, suggesting there are still new customers out there.
That could change in time—particularly if Tesla starts selling the cheaper single-motor trucks at an attractive price. For now, that’s not happening for reasons of practicality. As Tesla has demonstrated before, though, it knows how to ramp production and produce popular EVs en masse. If more Cybertruck buyers are out there, it will almost certainly deliver.
I’m not sure you can call the Cybertruck an outright hit. It hasn’t been a total gamechanger, it’s not the perfect truck, and there are subtle signs that demand of the rather polarizing truck is nowhere near what the reservations would have implied. Still, the market says it’s the best-performing electric truck out right now, and that can’t be ignored. If I can’t call it a hit, I’ll call it a solid top-ten single. It has its fans, and it’s absolutely memorable—it just hasn’t quite taken the world by storm just yet.
Image credits: Tesla, Ford
Top graphic image: Cars and Bids
I feel like the venn diagram of folks who:
probably has a lot of overlapping circles, but very little area covered by all of them. Dunno if it’s a flop, but I’m not sure it’s a hit either.
Interesting to read about all the other places lots of Cybertrucks are collecting dust. I’ll add to that list: there are dozens upon dozens, interspersed with other Tesla models, in the parking lot of a discount store called Gabe’s in Franklin, TN.
it’s over 100k how can a vehicle that expensive be a “hit”. what kind of sales volume would justify that title??
I mean, I’m sure someone with better search engine know-how than me could quickly pull up some sales figures for cars over $100,000, histories, what kind of metrics the manufacturers use to determine if it’s a success or not…
I concede that outselling the Lightning and Silverado EV isn’t nothing, and that’s still obviously millions of dollars…but who knows how much has been invested in making them so far and what their breakeven point is.
It’s hard to define success without knowing what the goal actually was.
Best selling truck? Nope.
Best selling EV truck, for 1 year at this point, so maybe.
To pump stock and keep investors thinking their stock is actually worth the ridiculous price they paid for it. – probably helped so maybe also a success.
As a test bed for new approaches/tehcnology that will be used in other models? Maybe, but it’s not clear that they are ever going to redesign anything significantly so maybe not.
It’s a cop out, but time will tell. It’s really hard to tell how much time Tesla has to support its market cap with actual income before it crashes. It’s been amazingly resilient.
It’s a real piece of hit.
/s
A bit early to say, I think, but I wonder if it just comes down to the fact that the audience for CTs is inherently limited. It’s not a great truck, so those that really need a good truck aren’t likely to buy one. Calling the looks “polarizing” is an understatement, particularly among those who aren’t car fans and haven’t been following its development; encountering one on the road for the first time is a slap in the face even if you’ve seen photos. Much worse if you haven’t.
Certainly, there are a lot of people who don’t need a truck but drive one as a matter of style, statement, or just preference. But they’re a limited segment of the population. Take that limited segment and then further limit it to those who don’t mind slapping people in the face with their sense of style and who don’t object to Elon’s antics, and you end up with a pretty small segment of the population. Perhaps, most of those folks who can afford one have bought theirs.
All of this is irrelevant considering it is the only “truck” that will be available legally a year from now.
Chris, I think this is a bad opinion. (Respectfully.)
I honestly don’t care what you or roughly 99.99% of people on this planet think of my opinion. My opinions are unhinged and hyperbolic and generally thrown out just for fun. (Somewhat respectfully.)
But seriously, I wonder how many we’ll be seeing with “US GOVERNMENT – OFFICIAL USE ONLY” plates a year from now and I won’t be surprised if we don’t learn until after the midterm that we the taxpayers paid full MSRP for them which never happens with GSA fleet buys.
It’s all about the grift.
Oh, but Trump is reportedly banning the government from purchasing electric vehicles altogether. I feel like his disdain for EVs is going to come into conflict with Musk sooner rather than later. And that both of them have always got to have the biggest ego in the room.
I cannot wait for this inevitable break-up to end as messily and stupidly as possible, provided it doesn’t take the rest of America with it.
Total fail in the way the Hummer brand was a fail (when it was a gas truck). Anyone buying these asshole mobiles at this point knows that’s the image they are conveying. Also, i just noticed one reason I hate this vehicle so much is because it has no face.
Think about the damage the Cybertruck as done to the Tesla brand. It’s almost equal to the damage Elon himself has done to the brand.
At first it was just the asshole image, but since it’s Maga motors now, it’s the Maga asshole image.
I really do wonder how much Musk’s push into politics in general and his increasingly outlandish persona has affected sales. I’m not terminally online enough to think the majority (or even a sizable chunk) of the people looking at buying cars or trucks care about this, but there was already a very specific type of person that was looking at buying a Tesla with their aging fleet.
Now that Musk is basically attached to the hip of the incoming presidency, I wonder if the folks who have the money to buy 75-100k trucks would be thinking about driving what could become a rolling political statement. You may also get new sales this way, but I feel like the current “vibes” of the world is that folks with money may start wanting to fly a bit more under the radar which this wouldn’t allow them to do.
Watching Tesla’s growth (or lack thereof) and sales numbers over the next 4 years will be interesting.
Tesla sales are down big in Europe and, in spite of 30k cyber truck sales, will either be down or flat in the US.
The rest of the EV market is going gang busters in both markets.
So I think it’s pretty clear he’s preventing growth.
The Board seems content with sacrificing growth to keep what they currently have
I’ll vote flop – sure they sell some, but is it going to be enough to pay back the development costs?
This is the automotive equivalent of the Airbus A380. Eventually orders will die off before the balance sheet is made whole.
The A380 at least had a business case even if it was partly driven as a pride project. I don’t think the Cybertruck ever made sense.
It did, when it was $40,000, could pull 14,000 lbs and had a range of 500 miles. They got over a million pre-orders for the thing. On the face of it, that’s a strong business case. Then the fantasy hit the real world.
In the A380’s case, Airbus was betting on a business case involving air travel with lots of people moving hub to hub with connecting flights out to smaller markets, while Boeing was betting on more direct-to-destination flights with the Dreamliner and less bulk movement between hubs.
Boeing got the projection right, and the A380 project lost a lot of money. Jury’s still out on the Dreamliner – they need to consolidate their feces on the manufacturing side and deliver on their promises, but at least they’ve got the right product for the market.
Similarly, the CT would probably be successful if Tesla was selling it with the promised specs & cost. Not a quarter million units a year successful, but I do think there would be a market for it at that price point.
It’s hard to promise made up specs by Felon Musk.
Kind of like the smoke and mirrors of his shitty self driving taxi that isn’t self driving, but remote controlled.
Yeah, but those specs were lies. At the time we knew they were lies. The A380’s capabilities were at least projected by engineering-based reality, not some maniac’s fever dream. Aside from the CATIA mismatch and some fuel burn misses (which were fixed) it did what it said on the tin. That Airbus guessed wrong isn’t even in the same ballpark as the lies pushed by Tesla. Airbus wasn’t promising to carry 500 people while only using a hundred tons of fuel and emitting no carbon while costing half per frame of a 747.
Fair points, though I will say there is some part of the population that didn’t think the original specs from Elon were lies. (That probably includes Elon himself.) And I think it was Airbus pushing the “the future of air travel will look like this” concept.
But you are correct – the A380 did what it was supposed to do. The CT, not so much.
Yeah — it’s easy for us, posters on a car site, to look at anything announced by Elon Musk with suspicion after years of Elon failing to deliver on his promises.
The wider general public isn’t us. I’m still dumbfounded every time I hear someone try to call Elon a big business genius, but dammit if the Iron Man cosplay he’s done in the past few years wasn’t effective on people who don’t pay closer attention to his antics.
I think it’s successful the kind of way Jake and Logan Paul are successful. You wonder who the fuck keeps giving it money and generally hate seeing it, but it just keeps showing up.
In my personal, very snarky, opinion.. the fact they sold any at all makes it more of a success than I expected. It’s just dumb.
In my less personal opinions about it, I’ve seen plenty around and for such a polarizing design it clearly connected with a certain demographic. What that demographic is, I have no idea. It’s also working out for wrap companies because I rarely see any that aren’t wrapped in some weird color.
I’d only call it a success in that they had the balls to build it, and have it look almost exactly like the original renderings. And from an EV perspective, it does have a lot of good tech.
But it fails, in my opinion, because they didn’t seem to do a lot of benchmarking from just a basic truck level requirement set. As someone who has worked as a product lead and program manager for vehicles, I think they could have made it better by:
-Starting with the bed dimensions of every other truck, and mimic what has worked
-Made a mid-gate solution like the Avalanche/Silverado EV.
-Not used aluminum for certain structural parts, but kept it in other areas for mass reductions
-NOT USED STAINLESS STEEL FOR BODY PANELS
-NOT USED STEER BY WIRE (at least for the front wheels) for safety/redundacy
-Smaller windshield
-Double wiper system with smaller blades/arms
Based on how quickly used Cyberbuck prices decreased and how many of these are sitting unsold, it appears the Cybertruck is not a huge success. I can’t say I am surprised. The S, X, 3, and Y succeeded because they are genuinely good when objectively compared to vehicles in their respective classes. A lot of people dislike Tesla because of Elon, but I don’t hear a lot of criticism about those four vehicles.
The Cybertruck isn’t great at its stated purpose. It is not great at hauling cargo and has limited range when towing. It also requires drivers to make some ridiculous compromises. From what I have read, it isn’t even obvious how to open the doors from the outside without using an app. Overall, this vehicle was built with no regard to practicality. I like Cybertruck styling, but I would never make the sacrifices required to live with such a vehicle, and I certainly wouldn’t pay a premium to do so.
I’m curious if Tesla actually thought this was going to be a big seller. Elon made a lot of wild claims about anticipated Cybertruck sales figures, but I can’t tell if that was based on objective projections or if it was just Elon being Elon (I suspect the latter). If Tesla and Elon thought this was going to be a hit, that says a lot about how out of touch they are with buyers. If they expected this to be a niche product sold primarily to diehard Tesla fans, that is fine, although it seems like a lot of dollars were burned to build a vehicle unlikely to generate major profits. These resources could have been better spent on a conventional pickup truck, or at least new versions of the 3/Y/S/X that are visibly updated from previous models.
To me, the biggest takeaway from the Cybertruck saga is that Tesla makes strange product planning decisions. Elon is a bit of a weird due and is prone to quirky ideas. I don’t think that it is necessarily a bad thing, but he needs guardrails. Tesla appears to be set up in a way that allows Elon to unilaterally make product planning decisions, including decisions that appear to obviously negatively impact the company. That can’t be a good thing for Tesla’s long-term outlook.
It’s not immediately obvious unless somewhat familiar with Tesla. That said, it doesn’t need the app. Hit the little white rectangle on the B or C pillars over the part of the door meant to be pulled. The door will pop open. Grab the top of the door body and pull. Watch the door corner getting in. Those can be sharp.
Elon tried to do a Microsoft where the look didn’t change much but the underlying code/hardware got updated. The 2023 and 2024 Teslas have far more powerful computers than earlier models but the same looks. That’s…….not how the car industry usually works.
Pressing a rectangle on the B or C pillar doesn’t seem like a big deal at all. I had heard it was complicated, but I guess that isn’t the case. It seems problematic the corners are sharp, though. Again, practicality seems to have been low on the priority list when this vehicle was designed.
Updating code/hardware without changing the styling seems to be a poor decision. As a Tesla owner/fan, I know the new vehicles are quite a bit better than the old ones. Even I have a hard time telling the newer and older versions apart at a quick glance, though. Most buyers don’t want a new car that cannot be readily distinguished from a 10-year-old model. Focusing on hardware/software at the expense of styling may be Tesla’s worst decision.
GM did the same thing with the 1991-1999 Buick LeSabre. Massive changes under the hood in 1996 with the change from OBDI to OBDII, 40 more ponies from the 3800 V6 and a new transmission. But put a 1991 next to a 1999 (heh, did that!) and good luck telling them apart.
The Ghost of NUMMI strikes again!
“Hit the little white rectangle on the B or C pillars over the part of the door meant to be pulled. The door will pop open. Grab the top of the door body and pull. Watch the door corner getting in. Those can be sharp.”
Or buy something else with regular door handles.
EV door handles are weird right now. It’s a bit unfortunate.
Yeah, no one should have to do all that…it shouldn’t be complicated to open a damn door…this has been a solved problem for 100+ years…it should always be:
1)pull the REGULAR door handle/door at the same time
2)Get in
It’s actually a 1-STEP PROCESS since getting in is separate. Also, anytime you have to proactively “be careful” due to sharp edges, that’s an automatic complete failure
This all shows that this whole thing is such deeply stupid shit
It’s like Elon wants Tesla to mimic Porsche, only he didn’t get the memo not to mimic Ferdinand’s political affiliations in the ’30s and ’40s, too.
Notable piece of info missing from basically every article (on any site) about this topic:
The Cybertruck was originally $99k ($79k base, plus $20k for the Foundation package). Now that the Foundation package isn’t forced, and the cost is now $79k, it is below the threshold for the $7500 tax credit (max is $80k for trucks).
There’s a good chance people have been waiting for this, because the Foundation option was looked at as a “$27,500” option.
However, the Cybertruck hasn’t been official recognized by the IRS as eligible for the tax credit, yet.
So, it stands to reason that a substantial number of the people who have already waited a year for the $79k version to be available are likely waiting for the other $7500 tax credit to officially hit before pulling the trigger.
Excellent point. There’s also got to be some piece of gambling to it, since wasn’t it just last year they even allowed Tesla back on the rebate bandwagon? For a long time, you got nothing from the Feds because Tesla hit its sales targets a long time ago.
2023 was the first year Tesla was eligible, 2024 for the point of sale credit. I know because I delayed purchasing a Tesla until they were eligible for the point of sale credit.
I meant the tax credit (not POS)…I’m pretty sure any Tesla sold from 2020-2023 got nothing, but I can’t find good sources to show how many times history has been revised with this social engineering sh*show 🙂
A quick intercats search says Tesla hit the original 200k EV limit for the $7500 credit in 2018 and re-qualified for 2023. In 2024 that shifted to a point of sale credit. They were ineligible from 2020 through the end of 2022.
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-federal-tax-credit-phase-out-period/
https://www.tesla.com/support/incentives#new-vehicles
I think you can call it a success within the context of the electric pickup truck market (where its competiton is the F-150 Lightning, Silverado EV, Sierra EV, HUMMER EV Pickup, and R1T), in that it does seem to be the best selling model in its category
It’s a flop when you compare it to Tesla’s insanely over-optimistic sales forecasts and the fact that they seemed to have ramped up production to support those, and also when you compare it to the unrealisticly high amount of “reservations” people placed, which, given the long lead time and how little skin in the game reservation holders really had, were obviously never going to come close to being fully realized. Also, it’s only the 3rd best selling Tesla model, when they clearly expected it to be their #1 by this point, it’s getting outsold by an 8 year old small crossover and an even older small sedan (which is a market most people consider to be almost dead)
So, yeah, it’s doing well as an electric pickup, when compared to other electric pickups, but not when compared to how well Tesla predicted it would do, and how they probably need it to do.
Does anyone else feel like this site does everything it can to toe the line with Tesla, as if desperately doesn’t want to piss them off? I know Rootwyrm had very strong feelings about this.
I love this site and wish so badly I was one of the insiders, but if I was, I’d surely be pissing them off with my opinion of Tesla/Musky. I appreciate the need to maintain a balanced perspective, but this just feels chickenshit. The old site seems to have more courage on this subject.
Now that I’ve probably offended some of my favorite people on the planet, let me just say, the Cybertruck is a mistake driven purely the ego of man-child without enough guardrails.
BTW, Fully Automated Self Driving is just 18 to 24 months away. Put your money down today.
This site loves weird cars, and whatever else you can say about the Cybertruck being normal is not one of them. For good or ill (I personally don’t like it) it looks like nothing else on the road right now.
Please don’t ask them to be more like the old site. That overdone snark was one of the reasons I stopped visiting.
The Autopian is thoughtful and fun, not snarky. Snarky implies leaning too hard on the “negativity crutch,” which is something specifically prohibited by our style guide.
Also, ripping on Elon/Tesla/the Cybertruck at every opportunity isn’t what I’d call courageous. What’s more, in many ways, it causes a “Boy Who Cried Wolf” issue when major problems arise.
We report things as accurately as we can, and we strive to be as fair as possible, without letting our emotions get the best of us. I may be a bit more careful than other editors on this front, but I’ve seen the damage going the other direction can do to sites’ reputations, and that’s not happening here.
P.S. I took loads of flak when I wrote my honest opinion of the Cybertruck, and I’d do it again.
That lack of snark is exactly what I love about this place. There’s enough negativity around, no need to inject it just to be edgy.
Continue calling out automakers when it’s really deserved, but the generally positive vibe here is refreshing.
Hi David! 🙂
Are you now married? If so, Congrats!
My problems with Telsa/Musky/Cybertruck are specific, not everything at any opportunity. Space X has done absolutely incredible stuff. Tesla’s would be tolerable without all the Self Driving Fraud. And as I just typed that last sentence, it distilled in my mind yet again, I don’t like fraudsters and he pegs my fraud meter as often as anyone. I personally hold you in the highest regards of pretty much any human being I know, but I wish you’d hold him to account and I feel there’s some element of fear involved in your reluctance. Could I be wrong? You know as well as anyone how often I am completely full of shit, so do please consider that. And know I mean no offense. I’m just being a pushy asshole.
Note that I am not looking for snark and never asked for it (when did courage become equivalent to snark?), nor am I looking for every opportunity to bitch and moan. It’s about the fraud. However the extra helpings of racism, sexism, and classism sure aren’t helping my opinions either.
There is no fear involved. I don’t even know what I’d be afraid of. Tesla itself? They don’t even talk to media. They really have nothing to offer us. I’m also not worried about unhinged Tesla fanboys, because they’ll find issue with us if we show any critique of the brand. You could argue that by not fawning over Tesla and not regularly ripping on them I’m maximizing the number of complaints I’m going to receive — plenty from folks on the outer edges of each side. I’m not afraid of that.
Again, it’s about being thoughtful, and not letting emotions dictate our blogs. That’s what helps us stand out as a website.
Fair enough. Just keep in mind that his lies about self driving have probably directly lead to deaths. I personally find that beyond outrageous and reason enough to scream from the rooftops about anything I consider part of his bullshit and that includes the Cybertruck.
I hope you and Elise have a nice weekend and holiday.
Why don’t you make a site and post about his lies and opinions there? Seems like screaming from the rooftops is more your thing. Others on here want to read about cars, doesn’t matter what your opinion of the CEO is.
My emotions say FU. Jeez man. Why don’t you leave? I’m going to shit-post on you from now on.
Did everyone here forget that the folks running this site are the very same who ran the old site that everyone hates so much?
That’s not actually true. While Jason and I were the old site’s traffic leaders, we weren’t in charge of the overall direction of the site.
Matt was there. Mercedes was there. It was the Kinja system that sucked so very much, not the authors. Doesn’t matter. For some reason this experience really said something to me. Contact me directly if you ever feel like it.
Who made your opinion more important than others?
Really bad response there bud.
You sound like a real jerk in real life.
I appreciated the thoughtful evaluation of the CT. I think the thing is stupid in far too many ways (and not the kind of stupid I can appreciate) and hate Musk, but it’s easy and lazy to just pan it or worship it rather than looking at it objectively as to evaluate it as you would any less polarizing vehicle and that’s really what I want to read as I’m still curious about it and I’m never going to drive one nor even know anyone I’d want to spend time with who’d have one to evaluate it myself.
I never want this site to resemble the ole lighting site, never!
The vibe here is so much better, and more technical.
BTW, Rootwyrm had strong opinions about everything, IMO. I miss his(?) posts.
What happened to him?
Apoplexy.
“I know Rootwyrm had very strong feelings about this”
What did Rootwyrn NOT have strong feelings about?
LOL
Sure, why not call it a hit? In baseball parlance, it’s a double in a league of bunts and strikeouts. Musky Christmas.
I was told there were a million reservations for this, and that it would revolutionize the car industry. Hmm.
You gotta really want a stupid looking truck to pay six figures for one that looks exactly like all the other stupid looking trucks on the lot.
I know I had a million reservations about it.
As stated before, I’m happy they exist, I like seeing them in traffic, they’re interesting and cool looking in their own way and break up the monotony modern day traffic. I don’t have any interest in owning one for myself but that’s because I’m just not a truck guy so I similarly have no interest in an F-150.
I don’t know that selling twice as many as Rivians qualifies as great success when most normies don’t even know that Rivian exists, while everyone and their influencer dog knows about the cybertruck.
I see several Rivians a day (and usually maybe one CT). One thing Rivian seems to have going for it is that women don’t mind being seen driving it. I wish I were just making a harmlessly sexist joke, but I’m not. CT has an uphill battle if the sole market is wealthy white men. Whoops, now I’ve added racism and classism to the equation! Off to sensitivity training for me. /s
I don’t know about the race side of it but it definitely is a very male-coded vehicle both in its looks and the whole discourse around it.
I get to see plenty of Rivians around as well but living in Silicon Valley you don’t assume the rest of the country will do the same.
That’s why I like the suburbs of midsize cities as a litmus test — it’s more indicative of mass adoption despite a complete lack of showrooms or even widespread word of mouth — it eliminated the “me too” aspect of adoption and also validates that people with more normal incomes are willing to take the leap. Tesla took forever to catch on in most places. Rivian’s adoption was like being shot out of a cannon (to be fair, Tesla did do a lot to “normalize” the EV market first).
I live in middle of nowhere Nebraska and outside of the Omaha, Lincoln areas I have seen more Rivians than CTs. Granted, where I live, I’ve seen like 5 Rivians and 2 CTs total.
I’m in Sacramento. We have two Rivians on our street and a couple more within a three block radius. That said, the neighborhood is generally upper-middle to upper income and politically liberal. Rivians appeal greatly to people who don’t absolutely need what a truck does but who want one, want an environmentally friendly one (or at least one that they feel is), and who would now rather cut their own throats than put another $1 in Elon’s pocket.
This, here. Every woman I know HATES the CT, even people with weak opinions on cars. Several get to the point of almost spitting like a movie mobster when it’s mentioned. Even setting aside feelings about muskrat, IME most people (and women in particular) tend to prefer more rounded shapes, less confrontational designs, and even anthropomorphic features, which the CT is probably the most at odds with in all areas than anything else I can recall at the moment. The Rivian is nearly the opposite and even looks smaller than it is (making it more friendly). As another commenter recently pointed out to my surprise, the Rivian is essentially the same size as the F-150 when I thought it was more like 9/10 or even smaller all because of the styling. One of the mocking nicknames for the CT is the “Incelcamino” and, haha joke funny, but judging by the kind of insecure people who buy them for a certain type of image and my anecdotal women’s responses to the thing, it seems the exact opposite of what these guys should be buying. Of course, many people, to paraphrase Nick Cave, are the captains of their pain.
While not the pickup the R1S is the choice for the fashionable woman, in the well-to-do suburb to my north.
While the bro vibes of the Cybertruck are definitely a thing, it really helps when the figurehead of the company isn’t buying a major role in a political party that wants to further strip us of our rights, offering up his sperm to random people like a weirdo or allegedly sexually harassing women who work for him. I won’t even consider a normie Tesla at this point.
The Rivians have a friendly face, too. That may also play a role for those of us who don’t need to prove that we’re macho macho meat meat men. Personally, I like my little angry Lancer, but there’s just something so desperate for validation about the Cybertruck’s entire vibe. Maybe if it wasn’t the paranoid fever dream of an unsavory billionaire who’s rapidly losing it to red-pill radicalization and bad Ketamine trips, it might have a shot to come across as the wacky concept car for the road that certain apologists portray it as, but the Cybertruck’s vibe is genuinely inseparable from the company’s rancid head honcho at this point. It’s a shouty car, but not in a fun way. More in a “please like me and think I’m the biggest biggest boy” kind of way. “Don’t tread on me, but I’m scared of cities,” the vehicle. It’s a vehicle Alex Jones would shout out of if his tankmobile was in the shop and he hadn’t been bankrupt into oblivion. The culture has spoken, and it thinks you’re an insufferable, fragile goof if you need to drive around in a steel trapezoid.
It was supposed to be “Truck 2.0” and out sell the F-150, which, yes it out sells the Lightning, but has not, and will not out sell the traditional F-150, so in that regard, it is a failure.
To date, I have not seen one CT being used like a truck. No towing, no hauling large objects in its bed. No electrician carrying their equipment (though maybe they’re under the “hood”). No one advertising their truck-required business.
I just point and laugh.
I saw a Rivian R1T towing an enclosed trailer earlier this week and thought that was pretty neat.
How many different Cybertrucks have you seen?
And given that number, lets say 20, if you saw that same number of 2023+ F150 Platinums/Limiteds (same age and comparable price), how many of THOSE would have been towing or hauling large objects in their bed at the time you saw them? Probably also zero.
Depends on how you hand-pick the spotting. I’m sure I could finagle a point where I could spot 20 parking lot queen F-150s, but it would be uncommon to not see multiple contractor trucks before getting to that point. That might include F-150s not currently hauling stuff, but obviously in commercial employ due to graphics, accessories, and possible work-associated damage. The difference is that the F-150 is used for such tasks and is sometimes bought as an image vehicle to kind of cosplay contractor while people commute to their soulless office job they regret. For non-image people who don’t use them for commercial purposes, they also make large, fairly comfortable and anonymous cruisers that people feel safe and in command in. CTs, being less capable than an F-150 in many areas, are far less likely to be bought for commercial purposes and the image it conveys is . . . far more selective to borrow a joke from This is Spinal Tap. The CT’s expense and styling over function marks it as primarily an image vehicle, which limits its broad appeal to people who just want an unassuming cruiser that can handle anything that might arise. Then there’s the association with the creepy f’n weirdo in charge who has made himself hard to ignore that turns a lot of people off.
I’d say that it isn’t primarily an image vehicle but exclusively so, as (pretty much) none of its distinguishing features helps it to perform any tasks better in any way. And the image it projects isn’t one that most people want. It’s a personal luxury truck. It’s not the only one by any means, but the Platinums and High Countries and Horns of Great Size at least pretend to be about utility and aren’t compromised by their luxury aspects, so there’s a certain faux humility to them that’s missing from an S-Class, which conversely isn’t as big and physically unavoidable. The Cybertruck isn’t at all humble and certainly doesn’t recede into the background, and that’s the whole point. It’s as if someone took a Hummer H2 (which also was brash and more compromised than the Suburban underneath, but at least it was visually linked to something that did a job), gave it a few cycles of steroids, some tribal tattoos, a pair of Oakley’s and a playlist with all of Andrew Tate’s videos.
Trump has been described as a poor man’s idea of what a rich man is. The Cybertruck is what an awkward and insecure man’s idea of what masculinity and cool are. (That’s not all it is, and for a few enthusiasts that’s not the role it plays at all, but as far as image, yeah.) The post-apocalyptic style and the bravado just extend (phrasing) its creator’s idea of cool out past the gullwing doors on the Model X and the naming scheme of models S, E (flipped to “3” because Ford holds that trademark), X and Y. And that kind of cosplaying arrogance holds little interest to most people old enough to afford a Cybertruck – even the ones desperate to project an image want to project one a little more sophisticated than that.
So the market is limited to thirteen-year-old boys of whatever chronological age, which means it will appear in lots of YouTube and Tik Tok videos and the parking lots of suburban hotels where “pickup artist” seminars are being held. Even in the best of times for the economy and the worst of times for society there are only so many of those.
I’ve also seen: a dumb person’s idea of a genius (can also apply to musk) and a weak person’s idea of strength. I agree with them all. Trump is like a less funny and somehow dumber version of my narc-sociopath spectrum father even down to the weird, condescending speaking cadence. He just needs to throw in some “You know, it’s like . . . you know?” for me to be convinced they were made in the same lab using a variation of the same snake oil.
These are the vehicles driven by the people who shout “f your feelings” in between bouts of crying and whining worse than the wussiest toddler and claiming to be victims no matter how much they’ve been handed.
I’m not disagreeing with your overall point. A higher percentage of F-150s are used for work than (to this point) $100k Cybertrucks. We agree on that.
I’m merely pointing out that the previous poster having seen a handful of Cybertrucks and none of them were doing “truck stuff” is a meaningless amount of data. One could easily see a handful of nearly new Platinum F-150s and also none of them would be doing “truck stuff”, either.
I point and laugh too. Glad I’m not alone.
No one wants a cybersuck except douche bros, influencers and Musk-stans. They’re definitely not worth the price of admission. While I’m not big on the domestic manufacturers, why anyone would buy this over an F-150 has me baffled.
I’m not sure if this is too obvious or not, but I wouldn’t call the CT a direct rival to the major manufacturers, or even to Rivian. It’s a statement piece or a status symbol above all else — arguably much more so than the Model S was at launch. I would even wonder if the CT has any real competition — we want it to because it makes for easier analysis. Think about the Wrangler, at least before the Bronco came out. Could you have convinced people that they really need a 4Runner for all of its additional practicality and comparable capabilities? Maybe, but if someone wants a Wrangler, they’re getting a Wrangler. Miata is another loose analogy, especially before the BRZ twins hit the market (and who won that quasi-battle?). Another fun side note, but back when I did default analysis on nationwide auto portfolios, the Miata and Wrangler behaved very similarly, and both had among the lowest default and repo rates in the business. It’s something that you covet, not just something you buy.Yeah, I know this feeds right into the “Tesla is a tech company, not a car company!” mantra, but there’s something to that. I don’t like it, and my 15 minutes in a Model 3 recently convinced me I’d never buy (or recommend) one, but apparently they’ve nailed the “car as a tech appliance” thing. And it’s accelerating as the Model 3 gets more and more affordable on the used market.
Sorry for the wall of text, for some reason paragraphs don’t work for me on PC…
I agree with your point, but more recent sales I’ve seen for the Miata are a good ways below that of the twins (unless you only want to count the BRZ as that sells at about 1/3 the GR86’s numbers).