It's even harder to build, according to the company’s CEO.
The highly anticipated Tesla Cybertruck is on track for its official launch toward the end of the year, but as a new Tweet from the company’s CEO Elon Musk reveals, it wasn’t an easy task to design and build the all-electric pickup.
We already know that the Fremont-based EV maker will use a pair of huge, 9,000-ton Giga Presses from IDRA Italy, which will reportedly be used for stamping the vehicle’s largest metal parts in a bid to simplify the whole production process and lower costs.
Replying to a short video showing a Cybertruck prototype at Tesla’s Austin, Texas Gigafactory, Elon Musk said that they’re working hard to get the pickup into production and that it was a tough product to design, but that “it will be great.”
In the past, Musk has said that he’ll use the Cybertruck as his daily driver and was seen driving what appeared to be the latest development prototype onto the stage at the groundbreaking ceremony of Tesla’s future lithium refinery. That particular vehicle was fitted with a never-before-seen roof rack that also doubled as a tool rack.
Additionally, the carmaker’s CEO said during the annual shareholders meeting that he expects the Cybertruck to sell between 250,000 and 500,000 units per year once production is fully up and running, which is quite an ambitious goal, considering America’s pickup truck sales leader – Ford – sold just over 650,000 F-Series trucks altogether last year, including almost 16,000 all-electric F-150 Lightning vehicles.
“I’d say a quarter million a year is a reasonable guess and it might be 500,000, I don’t know. We’ll make as many as people want and can afford. It’s going to be hard to make the cost affordable because it is a new car, new manufacturing method, so in the grand scheme of things relative to the production rate of all the other cars we make, it will be small. But still very cool.”
When the Cybertruck was unveiled back in 2019, it was supposed to start at around $40,000, but the company has since removed all relevant data from its website, including the price and technical details. With this latest statement, it looks like Musk is preparing potential customers for a potential price increase.
However, nothing is official, so we’ll just have to wait and see what the Fremont-based automaker has in store for its first-ever pickup.
As always, we’d like to know what you think about this, so head over to the comments section below to give us your thoughts.
Source: Elon Musk (Twitter) via Teslarati
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Keyword: Tesla Cybertruck Was “A Tough Product To Design,” Says Elon Musk