Elon Musk, the CEO, said to shareholders on Wednesday, “We dug our own grave.”
Although Tesla’s road with the Cybertruck has never been simple, the CEO of the firm claims that things have recently taken a particularly bad turn. Elon Musk informed investors during the company’s quarterly results call on Wednesday that the Cybertruck’s distinctive design is making mass production far more difficult than planned.
With the Cybertruck, we “dug our own grave,” Musk lamented.
The Cybertruck is unique for a reason. It has an angular, stainless steel body that is bulletproof, windows that are (said to be) shatterproof, and it runs on electricity. Everything from truck bed covers to windscreen wipers must be built specifically for it because of how drastically different its design is from the ordinary.
When the Cybertruck was first introduced in 2019, the innovative strategy captured the attention of many people, bringing in more than 200,000 preorders with $100 deposits in just three days. Depending on the trim they chose, customers were assured they would receive their trucks in late 2021 or early 2022. The plan, however, was swiftly derailed by the COVID-19 epidemic and related supply constraints, putting the earliest release date to 2022…and then 2024.
Earlier this year, it appeared that Tesla might provide Cybertrucks to clients in the third quarter of 2023. As the Texas Gigafactory’s volume line was being constructed, Musk informed investors that the business had successfully rolled Alpha test models of the Cybertruck off its pilot line. However, Q3 has arrived, and individuals who gave Tesla $100 a couple years ago are still unable to display their odd trucks in their driveways.
Musk said to shareholders on Wednesday that the less predictable the conclusion, the more unexplored the region. “You will run into challenges proportionate to the number of new things you’re trying to address at scale when you have a product with a lot of new technology or any brand-new vehicle programme, especially one that is as different and complex as the Cybertruck. I do want to underline that achieving volume manufacturing with the Cybertruck and achieving the Cybertruck’s positive cash flow will be extremely difficult.
Tesla wants to make 250,000 Cybertrucks annually, according to Musk, but won’t likely reach that level until 2025. Also, it would take the Cybertruck around 18 months to start turning a profit.
Musk reassured investors that the Cybertruck was still a great project and will succeed when the time was perfect.
It’s one of those unique goods that only seldom appears, he remarked. And unique things that occasionally appear on the market are just exceedingly challenging to sell in enough quantity to be successful.