Elon Musk made some rare new comments on Tesla Cybertruck and gave a better idea of the production ramp for the electric pickup truck.
During the conference call following Tesla’s release of its Q3 2020 financial results, Musk was asked to give more color on the production ramp of the Cybertruck, and when we can expect deliveries.
The CEO started by mentioning that he recently did a design review of the Cybertruck with Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla’s design chief:
I was in the studio last Friday with Franz and the team looking over some improvements on the Cybertruck.
Musk reiterated Tesla’s strategy to always improve on concept vehicles with the production version, unlike other automakers who often significantly tone down vehicles from concept to production.
The CEO added:
There are a lot of small improvements compared to what was unveiled. I think it’s going to be better than what we showed.
Tesla has apparently been making a lot of changes to the Cybertruck design over the last year since unveiling it in November 2019.
Musk previously talked about Tesla updating the Cybertruck’s adaptive air suspension. They also talked about making the truck smaller, but Musk scrapped that plan after another design review back in May.
However, several design refinements are expected to be implemented.
As for the timeline to production, Musk did remind everyone that the Cybertruck is tied to Tesla completing Gigafactory Austin in time:
It’s dependent on completing that factory and there are some new technologies with the high hardness exoskeleton. This has never been done before so there will probably be some challenges.
Musk said that if all goes well, Tesla should deliver some Cybertrucks in late 2021 as previously announced, but people should not expect volume production until 2022.
Electrek’s Take
To be honest, I have some doubts about Tesla bringing the Cybertruck to production by the end of next year. Elon did say that deliveries in late 2021 and volume in 2022 is dependent on everything going well.
I put the probabilities of everything going well on both building a brand-new factory and deploying brand-new manufacturing techniques for an armored exoskeleton to nearly zero.
Things are bound to not go perfectly.
On top of it, Elon is talking about the Cybertruck design still not being final as of last week?
Sounds like they would need a miracle to bring the electric truck to production next year.
But anyway, Tesla needs to ramp up battery cell production to deliver any significant volume of the Cybertruck, and that’s not expected until 2022, so a delay probably wouldn’t have a massive impact on delivery volume as long as the battery cell supply is not secured.
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