Tesla unveiled new measurements for its long-delayed Cybertruck in its Q2 earnings report. The polarizing truck will be less than 6 meters long and will have a cargo bed longer than 1.80 meters, which is shorter than the best-selling Ford F-150 Lighting, which is 6 meters long with a 1.5 meter cargo bed .
“We continue to build Cybertruck release candidates on our last production line in Austin,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during an earnings call today. Musk claims it’s the first four-door pickup to come in that bed and length combination and that there’s “a lot of new technology” in the vehicle.
Tesla claims that Cybertruck will “cross many boundaries” technologically and architecturally in its press release today.
Cybertruck’s unconventional design allows for sizing. Musk’s desire to create something that would emerge from a sci-fi post-apocalyptic movie rather than a practical work truck forced the company’s engineers to create something that doesn’t resemble a practical pickup.
“That’s one of the elements of good design, it should feel bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside,” Musk said during the phone call. He adds that you can put a Cybertruck in a 20-foot garage, which is getting more and more a bigger problem these days for homeowners who own more and more blown-up pickups.
Pickups have evolved over the years to meet consumer demand for lifestyle vehicles with larger cabins and more luxurious features. Ford’s first generation F-150 was 36 percent cab and 64 percent bed; now that ratio has reversed, with the latest models having a 63 percent cabin and 37 percent bed ratio in 2021, according to Axios. With the design of Cybertruck, Tesla tries to draw a stark contrast to Ford’s best-selling vehicle.
Tesla is now testing Cybertruck vehicles for “final certification and validation” around the world. The automaker just announced last weekend that the first production Cybertruck has rolled off the production line at its Gigafactory in Texas.
Musk confirmed today that production of the truck will begin this year, with scale production starting in 2024. A year earlier, Musk expected deliveries to begin at this point, but now the company says it will begin later this year, in line with an April announcement of a third quarter delivery event. The Cybertruck was first unveiled in 2019.
Earlier this year, a report shed new light on Tesla’s difficulties getting Cybertruck into production. Unearthed internal documents from early 2022 pointed to ongoing issues that have existed since the alpha prototype, including flaws in brakes, body sealing and suspension. The stainless steel housing is reportedly extremely expensive to be mass-produced.
The truck is reportedly slightly smaller than the original prototype. 2020, Musk teased that there might be a smaller version of the Cybertruck for the European market. And we saw the latest handlebar design earlier this year that combines the yoke and circle wheels. Unfortunately for pre-order holders, it seems it’s too late to do anything about the giant windshield wiper.
