The birth of the Tesla Cybertruck began way back in 2012 when Tesla CEO Elon Musk publicly announced his vision to create a “Tesla supertruck with crazy torque, dynamic air suspension, and corners like it’s on rails.” For two years no one heard any update regarding the Cyber Truck, then in 2014 Musk announced production would begin in 2018 or 2019. Tesla planned to create a truck which could compete with the Ford F series and General Motors trucks. The Ford F-150 was considered the best truck on the market in 2014, and Musk stated that the cybertruck would be equivalent to, if not better, than the Ford F-150.
Finally on Nov. 21, 2019, in Los Angeles, the concept CyberTruck was unveiled. During the unveiling, Tesla claimed the windows were unbreakable, but the lead designer of the truck, Franz von Holzhausen, tossed a steel ball at the windows causing them to shatter. Musk later claimed the failure was due to an earlier test in which a sledgehammer was swung at the door causing the window to crack. The declared starting price at the time for a low-end model was $39,900, for the dual motor all wheel drive it was $49,900, and the trimotor started at $69,900. The low end model would get a driver 250 miles of range per charge, 0-60 in 6.5 seconds, and a towing capacity of 7,500 pounds. The dual-motor all-wheel drive model offered 300 miles of range per charge, 0-60 in 4.5 seconds, and a towing capacity of 10,000 pounds. The highest level tri-motor model boasted 500 miles of range per charge, 0-60 in 2.9 seconds, and a towing capacity of 14,000 pounds. All versions of the pickup had Tesla’s Autopilot and advanced driver-assist features. An optional “self-driving” package would cost $7,000 more, if customers are willing to preorder and wait for the autonomous driving feature to be developed.
Immediately following the unveiling, Tesla allowed reservations for $100 non-refundable deposits and a week later Elon Musk tweeted that 250,000 reservations had already been placed. Two years later in 2021 the Cybertruck’s pricing and details were removed from Tesla’s website without explanation. During a 2022 Tesla stock shareholders meeting, Musk responded to the issue stating that final specifications and pricing would be different from the 2019 concept unveiling. In July 2023 almost five years later than promised, the first Tesla Cybertruck was built on the production line at the Gigafactory in Texas. Just prior to the delivery event on Nov. 30, 2023 preorder reservations were shut down with around 2 million orders placed of which Tesla estimated 30% would turn into official sales. During the delivery event the first 10 customer models were delivered, and a video of the Cybertruck drag racing a Porsche 911 while towing a Porsche 911 was presented to demonstrate the extreme power.
The delivery event also saw the final pricing, availability, and specifications. Tesla was still sticking to the original plan with three separate models, but prices changed significantly. Compared to the 2019 unveiling, the prices have risen roughly $20,000-$30,000 between each of the models.
Recently, the Cybertruck has received a ton of criticism for many different things. The first one being the major delay which ended up being multiple years, along with a dramatic price raise. The overall look and feel of the truck is a problem as many people cannot stand the design. The truck has very sharp edges, looks like a box, and is much bigger than other cars and trucks on the road. Numerous people also have gone public regarding the cheap interior quality and major software delays. Although the Cybertruck may have been delivered in late 2023, a number of the software updates are yet to be active on the vehicle. Only in the past few months Tesla has finally rolled out a few updates for vision autopark which allows the truck to autonomously park itself. Tesla announced just last week that Smart summon technology would be released, but many customers have yet to receive the potential software update for their vehicle. Tesla set themselves up for failure by promising certain things by certain dates and then missing those deadlines by substantial amounts of time resulting in justified criticism from customers for their mistakes.
