Ford now says that it is not participating in the Tesla Cybertruck vs. F-150 tug-of-war rematch as it calls the first one “absurd.”
As we reported earlier today, Tesla CEO Elon Musk agreed to redo the Cybertruck vs. Ford F-150 tug-of-war challenge after claims the first one wasn’t fair.
It appears that Tesla used a rear-wheel-drive version of the Ford F-150, and during a Twitter exchange with scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Musk agreed that it would be fairer if both trucks were loaded during the challenge.
Musk agreed to a rematch and even agreed to bring Ford onboard after an executive from the automaker, Sunny Madra, challenged Tesla to a fairer tug-of-war between the F-150 and the Cybertruck.
However, Ford has now issued a statement saying that Madra wasn’t actually challenging Tesla to redo the test and made it sound like they are not doing a rematch (via Fox):
Sunny’s tweet was tongue in cheek to point out the absurdity of Tesla’s video, nothing more.
They continued:
With America’s best-selling truck for 42 years, we’ve always focused on serving our truck customers regardless of what others say or do. We look forward to our all-new F-150 hybrid coming next year and all-electric F-150 in a few years.
While Ford doesn’t seem to be willing to participate, it looks like Tesla is going to move forward with a rematch after Musk took the criticism of the first video to heart.
Electrek’s Take
Do you think this is the right move from Ford?
Sounds like it’s going to happen anyway, so Ford, you might as well participate and make sure it’s as fair as possible for your truck.
Or maybe the company knows it’s going to lose, so Ford doesn’t think it should officially be part of it, so Ford ends up just being part of Tesla’s marketing.
What do you think?
I don’t know. Again, I think Ford should have said yes and then just shown up at the challenge with its own F-150 all-electric prototype.
That would have been cool, but I also see the problem with that for Ford, which needs to keep selling its gas-powered trucks and can’t be pushing its upcoming all-electric (aka better) version of the truck, which won’t be out for years.
But the Tesla Cybertruck also won’t be out for years.
I feel like it’s a missed opportunity.
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