Tesla has officially confirmed that deliveries of the Cybertruck will begin in November 2023. The Cybertruck is the company’s first pickup truck, and it marks a radical departure from Tesla’s existing lineup of sleek, mass-market people movers like the Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover. Here’s what we know about the Cybertruck’s release date.
Cybertruck release date: November 30 ‘customer delivery’ event
Tesla said there will be a “customer delivery” event for the Cybertruck on November 30, 2023, in its most recent quarterly results (Q3 2023). This presumably means that Tesla plans to hand over keys to at least some Cybertruck customers on or by that date — but as to how many, we simply don’t know.
The event itself hasn’t been announced in detail, all we have is a date. Likely, it will be held at or near Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas facility outside Austin, where the Cybertruck is currently being manufactured in “pilot production.” Cybertrucks have been seen accumulating outside Gigafactory Texas in the past couple of weeks.
How many Cybertrucks will Tesla deliver in 2023?
This is arguably the better question to ask than “When is the Cybertruck coming out?” While Tesla has said its Gigafactory Texas plant has end capacity for over 125,000 Cybertrucks annually, that doesn’t mean the company’s run rate (the number of vehicles actually being produced) will be anything close to that when production starts. In fact, it will likely be much, much lower.
Elon Musk has stated that we should “temper” our expectations for the Cybertruck initially, as it is a very complicated and difficult vehicle for the company to produce (possibly due to new manufacturing techniques and use of non-traditional materials like stainless steel). Musk’s remarks were directly related to the production ramp-up process — that is, reaching sustainable, repeatable volumes of vehicles coming off the manufacturing line.
All that is to say: We don’t know how many Cybertrucks Tesla will actually be able to build at first, and only Tesla has the answer to that question (and they aren’t talking). But statistically, the chance you’ll be among the buyers to receive a Cybertruck in 2023 is incredibly low — especially given there may be over 2 million reservation holders now.
Who will get their Cybertruck first?
There’s no way to know. Tesla historically hasn’t been rigorous about honoring the order that vehicle reservations are received when delivering new cars. Given the huge amount of hype around the Cybertruck, the first recipients could merely be customers Tesla believes are good for the brand and building up excitement. (i.e., well-known Tesla fans, employees, and other influential people.)
Tesla makes no specific promises regarding reservations for the Cybertruck being honored in any order as part of the pre-order terms — it merely says you will be contacted when a final price sheet is available to configure your truck. That gives Tesla effectively unlimited latitude in terms of who it will deliver a truck to and when. (Given the deposit is a whopping $100, that’s not at all surprising.)
Is the Cybertruck release delayed?
This depends on how you choose to frame the question. Tesla promised it would start Cybertruck production before the end of 2023, and it appears it will fulfill that promise based on the November 30 delivery event. Technically, a manufacturer only needs to deliver one production car to inaugurate the production launch of a vehicle. Such things are common in the automotive industry with brand-new vehicle designs, where moving pieces like external suppliers may not fully align for scale production when the manufacturer wants to start.
Initially, production vehicles can also have much higher defect rates coming off the line, requiring rectifications (repairs and rebuilds), and a manufacturer may greatly slow or stop production in response to such events to implement changes on the line.
The number of Cybertrucks Tesla ends up delivering will be the only way we can start to definitively answer the question of whether the vehicle has meaningfully entered production. If Tesla delivers 50 Cybertrucks before the end of 2023, that’s a lot different than delivering 2500 — but either figure arguably constitutes production. Until deliveries start, though, there’s no real way to know how many Tesla will initially be capable of producing.
How many Cybertrucks can Tesla build in 2024?
The million-dollar question. Tesla is claiming “>125,000” production capacity for the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas, but this is very likely a figure expressing the current maximum run rate for that facility. This is not to be confused with the actual run rate, which will start much lower. 125,000 vehicles annually would mean over 10,000 Cybertrucks per month, and you shouldn’t expect Tesla to hit that figure for some time if Elon’s expectation-tempering comments are anything to go by. It is possible Tesla is targeting that run rate before the end of 2024, though (that is, over 10,000 Cybertrucks per month by December 2024).
While Tesla now has extensive experience in scaling the production of EVs, the Cybertruck isn’t like the other cars in Tesla’s lineup. Given what we’ve seen in regard to the apparent fit and finish of Cybertruck release candidates, it’s still not clear whether Tesla has a quality “problem” with the pickup. If cars start coming off the line with massive gaps and wavy steel body panels, Tesla may have some serious work to do. But they could also be fine! And it’s equally possible that the production challenges Elon referred to have less to do with the appearance of the truck and more to do with behind-the-scenes manufacturing processes.
Above and beyond 125,000, Tesla has stated that it eventually wants to hit 375,000 Cybertrucks produced per year, but has offered no timeline for that number.
How much will the Cybertruck cost?
We do not yet have official Cybertruck pricing. Tesla removed all earlier references to pricing for the truck from its website over two years ago and has never republished them.
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