Tesla Cybertruck appears to be facing significant sales challenges. After initial hype faded, and over a million reservations turned out to be as real as unicorns, Tesla is now enabling leasing options and free upgrades to move its inventory of the futuristic pickup truck. The company’s recent silence on the Cybertruck, even omitting it from their earnings call, speaks volumes about the situation.

Tesla initially projected sales of 500,000 Cybertrucks annually and established production capacity at the Giga Texas for 250,000 units per year. After working through the initial reservation backlog with fewer than 40,000 deliveries, the automaker is now struggling to sell the remaining vehicles.

  • @[email protected]
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    29722 hours ago

    This should surprise no one. The reception was poor, delivery was poor. It’s a niche market item in an existing niche market. On top of that, the de facto spokesperson of Tesla isn’t well liked by a lot of potential buyers.

    • Hildegarde
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      16722 hours ago

      “niche market,” is a way of saying they made a bad product few want.

      pickup trucks are hardly a niche product especially in the us

      • @[email protected]
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        10521 hours ago

        I don’t think I’d call that thing a pickup. I’m not gonna run to the farm and pick up a 1000lb bale of hay in that thing. A Baja looks like it has more bed space.

      • @[email protected]
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        5321 hours ago

        It makes more sense if you start from the other side - EVs are a niche market, and an electric truck is a small subset of that.

        The Cybertruck sold 38,965 units last year, vs 33,510 for the Ford F150 Lightning.

        • @[email protected]
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          12821 hours ago

          One of the things I love about my Lightning is that it doesn’t look like a fucking cybertruck

        • snooggums
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          2621 hours ago

          They shipped 39k cybertrucks for backlogged preorders that were based on a completely different description of what the truck would be.

          • Optional
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            1720 hours ago

            Well yeah, but to be fair, they were lying.

        • @[email protected]
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          1018 hours ago

          Which is mind boggling, as the Lightning seems like a good, attractive vehicle, while the cybertruck seems like a pile of shit

          • @[email protected]
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            215 hours ago

            The Lightning has also been out for a few years now, so it’s not the “new” thing. Also, I feel like half of those cYbErTrUcK purchases were people trying to resell them.

            • @[email protected]
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              314 hours ago

              Hopefully these people get double-fucked. Moreso because they bought a swasticar from President Musk, but also because fuckyou to people who buy stuff just to resell at a higher margin.

          • @[email protected]
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            218 hours ago

            I have no need for a truck, and I still considered getting one. The Lightning is very impressive all around.

          • @[email protected]
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            621 hours ago

            I guess making a search online is the one thing slightly more difficult than making an assumption.

            • @[email protected]
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              3421 hours ago

              You gotta love these comments in forums. Like the whole point of being here is to discuss and people like this are literally telling you to leave the site. Very useful, much contributions.

          • @[email protected]
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            318 hours ago

            Actually most vehicles are only 1-wheel drive unless they have a locker or similar installed (4x4 would be “2-wheel drive”).

            • @[email protected]
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              210 hours ago

              It’s just to make OP feel smart. A single driven axle with an open differential with one wheel on more slippery ground than the other would result in only one wheel transferring torque.

              • @[email protected]
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                214 hours ago

                Can you explain? I’m not much into cars, but that doesn’t sound right to me. A quick Google suggests maybe you’re referring to the open differential, but I don’t think that means that only one wheel is powered.

                • @[email protected]
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                  10 hours ago

                  They’re referring to an open differential. If you look at an open differential vehicle doing a burnout you will see that only one wheel is spinning.

      • no banana
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        1721 hours ago

        To be fair, it’s valid to cater to niche markets.

        However, that wasn’t what Tesla was aiming to do.

        • @[email protected]
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          3921 hours ago

          cybertruck is barely even a truck at all. its a truck shaped car for rich assholes to look rugged.

          • L3ft_F13ld!
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            21 hours ago

            Try and fail to look rugged. They just end up looking like the douche nozzles they are.

            • @[email protected]
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              1221 hours ago

              They’re a comedy show on wheels. They always lighten my mood when I see them. I’m a little smug too, knowing if I had that much money to blow, it wouldn’t be on one of those.

          • no banana
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            21 hours ago

            Which is a very niche market. I’m not part of that market.

      • Admiral Patrick
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        3221 hours ago

        “What?! You all wanted electric mail trucks, so here they are!”

        (Sadly / Probably)

      • andrew_bidlaw
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        419 hours ago

        I’d like a GTA singleplayer cheat making every police car a cybertruck that can’t pursue you for long and would rather lose control and do a barrel roll than even get close to you.

    • @[email protected]
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      3621 hours ago

      “Isn’t well liked” is quite the understatement. “Despised” is more like it. I actually like the way the cybertruck looks, I think the technology is interesting, and if I really wanted to, I could probably afford one.

      I wouldn’t drive one if it was given to me for free. I’d rather take a taxi every day than drive a public display of support for the treasonous fascist manchild that owns the company.

      Tesla’s second biggest problem is their shit standards and quality control. Their first biggest problem is their shit corporate leadership.

      • @[email protected]
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        1121 hours ago

        I swear that every time I saw one, the people around would point and laugh. 100k+ to drive a car that is always broken and mocked by everyone is quite expensive.

    • @[email protected]
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      2422 hours ago

      I mean off the bat that’s one of the worse combinations of people/product I’ve ever seen. I mean off the bat electric car’s target market is people that want to think they are doing something better for the environment.

      So… then the guy making them goes loudly in the “fuck the environment” group.

      To top it off though, Cybertruck itself always confuses me. I don’t know who the target audience is. The original tesla’s I could look at and think, that’s a cool car, if they ever came down in price I’d be interested.

      Cybertruck you look at and think… What a car would look like if you scaled up games from the 32/64 bit console era and made them HD without increasing the polygon count.

      • aramis87
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        2521 hours ago

        My problem with Tesla is that so many things seem half-unthinking, half-finished or half-assed:

        Unthinking: I know! I’ll put a ledge in from of the headlights, so snow can pile up while I’m driving!

        Unfinished: all the seam mismatches and eternally unfinished-but-really-close! full self-driving (it ain’t gonna happen).

        Half-assed: that recall they had to do because sometimes the latch doesn’t catch properly and the hood flies open when you’re driving and blocks your view. Tesla’s solution isn’t to fix or replace the hood latch so this doesn’t happen; they push a software up that monitors the hood latch and pops up a warning, telling you to pull over and check the hood latch. Because apparently fixing the issue that their poor design (see #1) and bad implementation (see #2) doesn’t warrant an actual fix, they’re just going to fob the risk , the cost and the work off to the customer.

        • @[email protected]
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          1721 hours ago

          I like the theory that Tesla had a long term roadmap before Elon scooped it up, and that he wasn’t able to do too much to disrupt that in the early years because he was focused on LARPing as Tony Stark on the Internet, and the team that developed around him to insulate the company from him were reasonably good at their jobs. But even the best can only hold back so few bad ideas while keeping up the illusion, and the result has been gradually diminishing amount of ass.

          Until that roadmap ran out, and/or Elon stopped being distracted, resulting in them designing and building the Elon.

        • @[email protected]
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          519 hours ago

          eternally unfinished-but-really-close! full self-driving

          Promised by next year since 2013

      • @[email protected]
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        1420 hours ago

        The target audience is monied tech bro millenials who really wanted a warthog out of Halo.

        The problem is that the overlap between tech bros and nazi lovers is definitely not 100%, probably not even 10%.

        • @[email protected]
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          215 hours ago

          If they wanted a Warthog, they should have gotten a Jeep.

          Or built one. There are at least three fully functioning Warthogs out there, I think. I’ve seen the one at Weta.

        • mosiacmango
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          520 hours ago

          The problem is that the overlap between tech bros and nazi lovers is definitely not 100%, probably not even 10%.

          Dont be so sure about that ratio. Plently of “got mine, im all bootstraps” tech bros. Id put the number at about 70/30% against nazis, but no better.

      • @[email protected]
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        721 hours ago

        We’re not all buying EVs for the environment. I bought an EV because I think the car is cool and it’s really enjoyable to drive. It’s nice that the “gas” is also significantly cheaper, but that wasn’t high on my list of reasons to get the thing, either.

        The EV owners I’ve talked to didn’t buy them for the environment, either, but I haven’t talked to any Leaf owners or anything. Maybe they’re more environmentally conscious. It being better for the environment long term is definitely nice, and I hope progress continues on batteries made with less toxic components.

        Thankfully, I did not buy a Tesla and they were never on my list of options because of Elon. So he definitely alienated a customer due to him being an awful human being. I also won’t use any of their charging stations, since I don’t want them to profit off of me.

        • @[email protected]
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          417 hours ago

          You could say we bought our Teslas “for the environment” in a way, though a bit roundabout. When we bought them (2018), it was after having previously leasing a Leaf which had shit mileage and poor performance over 40mph. We wanted to signal to the industry with our dollars that we wanted the EV movement to succeed. Because apparently money is the only thing they listen to. We knew full well that EVs were only a step toward a greener future or whatever but we wanted the industry to take that step and understand that being environmentally friendlier was important.

    • snooggums
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      1621 hours ago

      Plus the initial sales were to people who had already committed to preorders at a lower price for a truck that was hyped up to be far better than the end result.

      Cybertrucks are basically No Man’s Sky but without the possibility of being good in a half decade.

      • Optional
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        519 hours ago

        Cybertrucks are basically No Man’s Sky but without the possibility of being good in a half decade.

        Dag, yo. 🔥