Tesla Cybertruck

[darkswordsman17]

According to Edmunds, the average price of a new pickup truck is $50k. So the Cybertruck is already priced to compete with Detroit. We'd have to see the options sheet, but besides vaporware FSD for $10k, I think the CT will be well equipped at each of its trim levels. You're not really going to need the white interior or nicer rims, for example. Assuming CT delivers the utility that truck buyers desire and need, it could extend Tesla's near-term BEV dominance for several years.

The major kinks you allude to aren't a function of inherent design problems. Didn't Sandy Munro compliment some of the parts refinements when he tore down the Model Y earlier this year? The essential problem is Tesla insists on an end-of-quarter production blitz to meet arbitrary numbers. But if you're simply selling every car that customers order, why would you back load the production into the final 10 days and then have Quality Control ignore blatant problems? The Model Y arguably has a worse quality reputation now than the 3 did two years ago!

Its not about them competing with the current pickups, and I'd say its almost the inverse where we'll see if the others (the electric pickups) can compete with the CT. I expect the CT will undercut many of them.

I'm not sure about that, aren't they having a rash of Model 3s losing their bumpers because of...rain? The reason for the quality issues really doesn't matter if it continues happening or perhaps even gets worse. Its so they can keep their stock trending. They do promotions to get people to buy towards the end of the quarters so they can pad their numbers. Heck they were offering CT pre-orders special offers on other Teslas.

 

[Kaido]

like the cars that used posterboard and random colors of duct tape to hold the hvac system together? in a few years when the tape stops working, should be intersting.

I would love to get a Model Y right now, but if you check the owner's FB group, they're still being delivered with a ridiculous number of defects directly from the factory. Plus, there's plenty of historical weirdness:

Tesla Model Y owners find cheap Home Depot trim propping up cooling system

“Is it a big deal that Tesla used faux wood trim during assembly of my vehicle? No. Is it funny? Yes, yes it is!”

driving.ca

Tesla workers say they used electrical tape in Model 3 production

Tesla may have broken its own records, manufacturing 72,531 Model 3 sedans in the three months that ended June 30th. But employees say in the push to ramp up Model 3 production, they were forced to cut corners and work in difficult, unsafe conditions. A handful of employees who work in Tesla's...

www.engadget.com

https://twitter.com/x/status/1009174113938694144

The quality issues have caused the Model S to lose their Consumer Reports recommendations:

Tesla's Model S is no longer recommended by Consumer Reports after problems with its touchscreen, suspension, and body hardware

The magazine said its readers reported issues with the Tesla sedan's suspension, electronics, body hardware and more.

www.businessinsider.com

This has been cyclical:

Tesla Model 3 Loses CR Recommendation Over Reliability Issues - Consumer Reports

The Tesla Model 3 has lost its CR recommendation. Consumer Reports can no longer recommend the electric sedan because CR members say they’ve identified a number of reliability problems with their cars.

www.consumerreports.org

Owning a Tesla is not without its drawbacks:

12 Problems With Tesla Nobody Talks About

Tesla has done a lot for the EV industry, but owners are still facing countless problems with the brand's vehicles.

www.hotcars.com

The 3 & Y have winter heating problems:

New Tesla Tesla have massive heating problems in the middle of winter

New Tesla Tesla have massive heating problems in the middle of winter, Tesla Model 3 and Y users complain about heating system failure in cold weather Users of the new Tesla Model 3 and Model Y 2021 electric vehicles have

phonemantra.com

As I've said before, I'm a huge Tesla fanboy, but I don't wear rose-colored glasses when I look at them. They are trying to meet production deadline requirements & stay afloat financially and things are getting rushed. Every Tesla owner I know IRL has had problems, and those problems are typically annoying to deal with, because even something simple like changing a flat tire is a fiasco. I'd imagine we'll see a focus on improved quality & customer service over time, especially as they make money off the truck, because people aren't going to stand for that kind of stuff at the $25k price point, where things should be as easy & as reliable as buying a Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic.

 

[KentState]

I'm starting to get more on the fence about the Cybertruck. While I like the idea of having a truck, not sure it's something I want to deal with on a daily basis. The Y is about as big of a vehicle that I want to drive daily.

Pending on how the next 6 months go, my options once the X3 lease expires in May are:
1) sell wife's Acadia, give her the Y and buy a 3
2) wait for the C8 Z06, sell wife's Acadia and give her the Y
3) do nothing though the Acadia is older than I like.

I know the Corvette and 3 are probably not cross shopped by many but I miss having a pure sports car. The base C8 doesn't do it well enough over something like a 3, but a Z06 would be something I'd look at. I slightly considered an S but after having a P100D as a loaner, it was not as impressive as I was expecting. Felt too big and clumsy for my tastes.

 

[ponyo]

I'm starting to get more on the fence about the Cybertruck. While I like the idea of having a truck, not sure it's something I want to deal with on a daily basis. The Y is about as big of a vehicle that I want to drive daily.

Pending on how the next 6 months go, my options once the X3 lease expires in May are:
1) sell wife's Acadia, give her the Y and buy a 3
2) wait for the C8 Z06, sell wife's Acadia and give her the Y
3) do nothing though the Acadia is older than I like.

I know the Corvette and 3 are probably not cross shopped by many but I miss having a pure sports car. The base C8 doesn't do it well enough over something like a 3, but a Z06 would be something I'd look at. I slightly considered an S but after having a P100D as a loaner, it was not as impressive as I was expecting. Felt too big and clumsy for my tastes.

I definitely understand. Cybertruck is a huge vehicle. Even with us, my wife isn't too hot on the idea of me buying another truck. But she knows I love the Cybertruck so she's telling me to buy it. I know she'll be happier if I buy the 3 or the Y. So it's been so hard for me to resist and not buy the 3 or the Y. Like really hard. I've almost pulled the trigger and hit the order submit button so many times. But I keep telling myself to wait for the Cybertruck, and I'll appreciate it more if I wait and let that be my first Tesla.

I'm also super tempted to order the Roadster. My wife is telling me to go ahead and place the order and the $50k downpayment but the practical side of me keeps resisting. Even though I know I'll love it, I know it's bad financial move. I've driven my C6 Corvette barely little over 10k miles in 14 years. That's basically little over 700 miles a year. Meanwhile, I've paid for insurance all these years. At least the insurance on the C6 is cheap. It won't be on the Roadster.

 

[KentState]

I'd love to get a Roadster but it's way more than I would want to spend on a vehicle. I've had to Corvettes previously and put 12k on the first and 20k on the second one. Both I got with the though of using as a weekend car and ended up driving them most days. That's were the a 3 Performance sounds the most sound choice with the C8 Z06 being a huge stretch.

 

[Kaido]

I'm starting to get more on the fence about the Cybertruck. While I like the idea of having a truck, not sure it's something I want to deal with on a daily basis. The Y is about as big of a vehicle that I want to drive daily.

Pending on how the next 6 months go, my options once the X3 lease expires in May are:
1) sell wife's Acadia, give her the Y and buy a 3
2) wait for the C8 Z06, sell wife's Acadia and give her the Y
3) do nothing though the Acadia is older than I like.

I know the Corvette and 3 are probably not cross shopped by many but I miss having a pure sports car. The base C8 doesn't do it well enough over something like a 3, but a Z06 would be something I'd look at. I slightly considered an S but after having a P100D as a loaner, it was not as impressive as I was expecting. Felt too big and clumsy for my tastes.

The S is so big! Plus I didn't fit very well in it. Have you test-driven a 3? You'll want to try one out first if not, because it fits & sits differently than the Y.

 

[Kaido]

I'd love to get a Roadster but it's way more than I would want to spend on a vehicle. I've had to Corvettes previously and put 12k on the first and 20k on the second one. Both I got with the though of using as a weekend car and ended up driving them most days. That's were the a 3 Performance sounds the most sound choice with the C8 Z06 being a huge stretch.

I think a lot of it boils down to what you want out of a car. That's why I bought my stick-shift Mustang as a forever-car...I wanted something fun to drive with a gas engine & a 6-speed. The V8 would have been super fun, but for me, I actually really love the Ecoboost for a variety of reasons. Driving a Corvette is going to be a vastly different experience than a Roaster or even a Performance 3. I feel like there's a lot more connection & haptic feedback with a gas engine. Granted, afaik you can't get a C8 with a stick-shift yet, but still haha.

 

[Kaido]

I definitely understand. Cybertruck is a huge vehicle. Even with us, my wife isn't too hot on the idea of me buying another truck. But she knows I love the Cybertruck so she's telling me to buy it. I know she'll be happier if I buy the 3 or the Y. So it's been so hard for me to resist and not buy the 3 or the Y. Like really hard. I've almost pulled the trigger and hit the order submit button so many times. But I keep telling myself to wait for the Cybertruck, and I'll appreciate it more if I wait and let that be my first Tesla.

I'm also super tempted to order the Roadster. My wife is telling me to go ahead and place the order and the $50k downpayment but the practical side of me keeps resisting. Even though I know I'll love it, I know it's bad financial move. I've driven my C6 Corvette barely little over 10k miles in 14 years. That's basically little over 700 miles a year. Meanwhile, I've paid for insurance all these years. At least the insurance on the C6 is cheap. It won't be on the Roadster.

Same, a Y makes so much more sense for us, but dangit, I want a Cybertruck! lol. I don't want to be 80 years old before I enjoy life. That's not a license to go nuts financially, but rather have a balance & enjoy things. A Roadster may be a bad move financially, but if you're set on your monthly budget requirements otherwise, the time is going to pass & either you'll wish you had one, or you'll have enjoyed driving it. For me, the Cybertruck is big, dumb, and stupid, and I love it and I want one! Hahaha. Plus it's fairly competitive at the $40k pricerange! If your dream car is within your reach & you let it pass by because it's a bad hypothetical move, but not a bad move within the reality of your budget, then you have to ask yourself if you'd love to enjoy driving it for the next decade, or if you'd prefer pining after it. Obviously the answer is more complicated than that haha, but sometimes a clarifying perspective helps!

 

[KentState]

The S is so big! Plus I didn't fit very well in it. Have you test-driven a 3? You'll want to try one out first if not, because it fits & sits differently than the Y.

I actually test drove one before getting the Y around this time last year. While I like the Y I’m more of a sedan/lower profile car type person. The Y feels like it sits a little too high for my taste but my wife loves it.

 

[manly]

Its not about them competing with the current pickups, and I'd say its almost the inverse where we'll see if the others (the electric pickups) can compete with the CT. I expect the CT will undercut many of them.

I'm not sure about that, aren't they having a rash of Model 3s losing their bumpers because of...rain? The reason for the quality issues really doesn't matter if it continues happening or perhaps even gets worse. Its so they can keep their stock trending. They do promotions to get people to buy towards the end of the quarters so they can pad their numbers. Heck they were offering CT pre-orders special offers on other Teslas.

I think we're mostly in agreement, but see things from different angles. There's no doubt that Tesla takes sales away from legacy ICE autos (where else would buyers come from?). While a typical pickup truck buyer today isn't going to be an environmentalist, those are essentially the prospective buyers of Cybertruck. As alluded to in this thread, Tesla will pick off some people who would otherwise buy an "SUV" or passenger car, but I wouldn't expect that to be a common case. CT appears to undercut the heck out of the prospective EV pickup competition (as few as they are). So at least for the near term (say 3 years), we both know where CT buyers are coming from and that they really won't be able to cross-shop much else (Rivian R1T? It's $70k+).

As for QC, some large-ish percentage of Tesla manufactured cars don't have shit build quality. That suggests (but doesn't prove) that the essential designs are sound. It's their end-of-quarter blitzes and other dumb ass corner-cutting that produces shoddy examples. I'm not saying it's easy to fix this, but everyone assumes that Tesla can improve their QC and build quality if they committed to it. As for the rear bumpers falling off in heavy rain, we'd have to know the engineering problem before deciding if this is a recall-worthy flaw.

This has been debated before, and wealthy people who buy $100k Model S and Xes are early adopters, and least sensitive to teething pains. They have other car(s) in the garage and aren't dependent on one vehicle alone. But as Tesla sells to more mainstream buyers whose lives depend on 1 reliable vehicle, bad builds and other service issues will be more of a pain point. I'm not a bean counter, but I'm pretty sure pushing shitty cars onto consumers is bad for both the bottom-line and reputation.

 

[ponyo]

Same, a Y makes so much more sense for us, but dangit, I want a Cybertruck! lol. I don't want to be 80 years old before I enjoy life. That's not a license to go nuts financially, but rather have a balance & enjoy things. A Roadster may be a bad move financially, but if you're set on your monthly budget requirements otherwise, the time is going to pass & either you'll wish you had one, or you'll have enjoyed driving it. For me, the Cybertruck is big, dumb, and stupid, and I love it and I want one! Hahaha. Plus it's fairly competitive at the $40k pricerange! If your dream car is within your reach & you let it pass by because it's a bad hypothetical move, but not a bad move within the reality of your budget, then you have to ask yourself if you'd love to enjoy driving it for the next decade, or if you'd prefer pining after it. Obviously the answer is more complicated than that haha, but sometimes a clarifying perspective helps!

I don't really need any new car. I have 4 vehicles. All are old but everything works great. I'm going to give my daughter my Lexus LX470 so she can take it when she starts college this fall. I would love to buy her new Model Y for safety reason but charging will be a problem living in college dorms so LX470 will suit her better. So that will leave me with 3 vehicles, and I plan to replace my Toyota Tundra truck with the Cybertruck Tri-Motor once it's available.

Roadster is expensive toy. That's my dream car. I used to dream about Ferrari but now it's the Roadster. So that's why I want to get it. But I know I won't drive it much because I plan to travel and live out of the country for like 6 months out of the year going forward for the next couple of years. I want to travel and see the world. So that's kind of my worry other than the price of the car. I think it's a bargain for a supercar but it's still $200k plus tax which is lot of money for a toy which will just sit in my garage most of the time. But I probably still have 2 more years to think about on the Roadster since I think it will come out in late 2022 or maybe sometime in 2023. Elon Musk said the Cybertruck is the first priority/main course and the Roadster is the dessert which will come after. I'm thinking I'll probably receive my Cybertruck in early 2022 if everything goes well. If I love the Cybertruck, maybe that will convince me to pull the trigger on the Roadster. Or I could end up getting drunk one night and placing the order for the Roadster this year. You never know.

 

[Kaido]

Artist's rendering

 

[zinfamous]

hmm. probably enough room for the rail gun turret mod.

 

[Muadib]

Artist's rendering

View attachment 40993

View attachment 40992

Why do you tease me???

 

[WelshBloke]

Artist's rendering

The problem is that the actual cybertruck is so low poly that a photograph looks like an 8 year olds crayon drawing anyway, so artists renderings look more realistic than the real thing!

 

[Kaido]

Why do you tease me???

I might have to build one:

Build Your Own Homemade Camper! | RVshare

Have you ever wanted to build your own camper? This article will walk you through the process of creating a homemade camper masterpiece!

rvshare.com

 

[Red Squirrel]

If I sold the house I could afford it, and live in the trailer.

 

[Kaido]

The problem is that the actual cybertruck is so low poly that a photograph looks like an 8 year olds crayon drawing anyway, so artists renderings look more realistic than the real thing!

I'm really curious to see one in person! I think it will be Tesla's best-selling vehicle eventually. Ford sells like a million F-150's every year:

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2019/01/12/ford-surpasses-1-million-truck-sales-in-2018.html

$40k for a base Cybertruck is going to sell like gangbusters imo.

 

[Muadib]

I might have to build one:

Build Your Own Homemade Camper! | RVshare

Have you ever wanted to build your own camper? This article will walk you through the process of creating a homemade camper masterpiece!

rvshare.com

Not quite on the same level, but ok.

 

[WelshBloke]

I'm really curious to see one in person! I think it will be Tesla's best-selling vehicle eventually. Ford sells like a million F-150's every year:

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2019/01/12/ford-surpasses-1-million-truck-sales-in-2018.html

$40k for a base Cybertruck is going to sell like gangbusters imo.

I've got to say that I'm less of a fan of the looks now than I was at the announcement, its kinda dated badly before its come out in my opinion (or I just forgot how much I hated it).
Still everyone's entitled to their own opinion and everyone can spend their money as they like.
I doubt I'll see many around here as the country is rangerover or tractor territory and I can't see farmers abandoning either of those and the cybertruck isn't going to fit in any car parks in the city.

 

[WelshBloke]

I'd consider one of these if it had better range and actually existed!

 

[drnickriviera]

$40k for a base Cybertruck is going to sell like gangbusters imo.

They will probably sell as many as the $35k TM3

It is really interesting seeing all these companies popping up with car designs. Getting some stuff that the marketers haven't focus grouped to death. Really loving the Electric Wolf. Course, 10 years from now and you need parts for them, will they even exist?

 

[WelshBloke]

They will probably sell as many as the $35k TM3

It is really interesting seeing all these companies popping up with car designs. Getting some stuff that the marketers haven't focus grouped to death. Really loving the Electric Wolf. Course, 10 years from now and you need parts for them, will they even exist?

Why the massive bonnet (hood) though? Its not like there's a huge engine in there!
Although I guess familiarity is probably a good selling point.

 

[herm0016]

I'd consider one of these if it had better range and actually existed!
View attachment 40994

visibility would be terrible out the front, all those different pieces of glass. and the driver is still set back behind the front wheel if you look at the other pictures. why not a real COE like the jeep forward control? I am guessing too hard to meet modern safety requirements. or make it like a smaller version of a Unimog, with the big windshield and small sloped hood.

basically, i want an electric Corvair truck. simple, large bed size, side ramp, those trucks were so practical for real truck use.

 

[WelshBloke]

visibility would be terrible out the front, all those different pieces of glass. and the driver is still set back behind the front wheel if you look at the other pictures.

Yeah, that is an unfortunate design decision. There seems a lot of wasted space up front. Although lack of visibility in a Cybertruck thread is probably redundant!

There seems to be a lot of "make it different for the sake of it" rather than "look how we can make it better because we dont need a big space for an engine" going on in EV design. I understand the conservative make it look like a regular car thing to ease people into it but just making something look weird for no advantage seems odd.