Tesla Cybertruck is a mistake turned marketing tool
I think Cybertruck was a mistake for Tesla as it created this gap in growth for the company, but the automaker is making the most out of it as it turns the electric pickup truck into a marketing tool.
Tesla never had a dud. All its vehicle programs were successful in their own rights, some even wildly successful.
It’s too early to say if the Cybertruck is also going to be successful. It is enjoying a large reservation backlog, but it will be interesting to see how the demand holds once the vehicle’s production is ramped up.
But even once it is ramped up, Tesla is only talking about producing roughly 250,000 Cybertrucks per year.
It’s not nothing, but it also doesn’t significantly move the needle.
In fact, I would argue that Cybertruck has created what Tesla is describing as a break in its “waves of growth.” The first wave was the ramp-up of Model 3/Y and the next one is expected to be the ramp-up of Tesla’s upcoming next-generation vehicles starting in late 2025.
Tesla used to grow deliveries at a rate of roughly 50% per year, which is absolutely incredible for a major automaker.
Now, the growth has slowed greatly (20% as of last quarter), and Tesla has confirmed that it should be down throughout 2024. That’s obvious. Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y are almost maxed out, and the automaker only has Cybertruck to add to the lineup in 2024.
I would argue that Tesla would have been better off focusing its resources on its next-gen vehicles, the “$25,000 Tesla” and “robotaxi” throughout the last few years, to shorten the gap between its two growth phases.
If Tesla had brought the next-gen vehicles to market instead of the Cybertruck, it would have likely cut this break in growth by over a year.
Now, we likely can’t expect Tesla to return to 50% growth in deliveries until at least 2026.
But I have to admit, Tesla is making the best out of it. Again, I’m not saying the Cybertruck can’t be a successful vehicle program in itself. It’s too early to tell, but it could very well become one.
The production version of the Cybertruck is disappointing in many ways. It’s way more expensive than originally announced, it has a shorter range and requires an “extended range” battery pack that takes up a big part of the bed to get meaningful towing range.
On the other hand, it also introduces some cool technologies, like steer-by-wire and a 48-volt electrical system, and albeit polarizing, the novel design has attracted a lot of fans – and Tesla seems to be doubling down on that.
Hate it or love it, the Cybertruck is getting a ton of attention, and Tesla is utilizing it.
We reported that the unveiling of the Cybertruck alone already helped the sales of Tesla’s other vehicles by bringing people who were hearing about or getting interested in Tesla for the first time into the stores.
The Cybertruck rollout was also unique for Tesla. Before even starting deliveries, Tesla started to bring the vehicle in showrooms around the US. That’s unprecedented for Tesla. Again, it brought people into the showrooms, where Tesla tried to sell them its other electric vehicles.
Now, you can argue that it is still useful to have the Cybertruck in showrooms for reservation holders to come see it in person before moving forward with their orders.
However, Tesla even brought the Cybertruck to showrooms in Canada, where Tesla has yet to open orders.
Furthermore, the automaker brought Cybertruck on a tour in China and Japan, where we have no idea when or even if the Cybertruck will be available. The goal is again to bring people in stores and sell them Tesla’s other vehicles.
Therefore, it’s clear that Tesla is using the Cybertruck as a marketing tool, and at least so far, it definitely has a bigger impact that way than on its own with deliveries.
Electrek’s take
Again, I’m not saying that Cybertruck is a bad vehicle program. All I am saying is that it looks like it was a mistake to focus on it rather than Tesla’s next-generation vehicles.
It looks like for Tesla’s mission and shareholder value, it would have been better off spending the resources on bringing the next-gen vehicles to market a bit sooner. The difference over a few years would likely have been in the hundreds of thousands of vehicles.
Now, to be fair, even if Tesla’s growth is only about 15-20% this year, it’s still impressive for a major automaker entering the year with a production rate of about 2 million vehicles per year.
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Tesla has reportedly yet to start testing its robotaxi service in Austin without a safety driver behind the wheel – just weeks before the planned launch.
For months now, Tesla and CEO Elon Musk have been hyping the launch of “Tesla Robotaxi”, a Uber-like ride-hailing service powered by autonomous Tesla vehicles, starting with a launch in Austin, Texas in June.
We have extensively reported that this launch is disappointing compared to what Tesla promised for years: that all its consumer vehicles built since 2016 are capable of self-driving.
Instead, Tesla plans to build an internal fleet of “10-20” Model Ys and have them offer ride-hailing services in a geo-fenced area around Austin, Texas, helped by human teleoperations. This is very similar to what Waymo has been offering in other cities for years, specifically in Austin, for months now.
Even with the significant downgrade in self-driving capabilities promised with this project, there are many doubts about Tesla’s ability to achieve the lesser goal.
That’s because the robotaxi service will be based on Tesla’s ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’ program, which is currently achieving about 500 miles between critical disengagements fleet-wide, according to the latest crowdsourced data.
Tesla will be able to improve on that by optimizing a version for the geo-fenced area in Austin and it has been training its neural nets for that for months with vehicles going around Austin.
However, a new report now claims that Tesla has yet to start testing its service without safety drivers at the wheel – similar to Tesla’s public ‘Supervised FSD’. The Information wrote in a new report:
Elon Musk’s deadline for launching Tesla’s first robotaxi service, in Austin, Texas, is weeks away, but the company hadn’t started testing its cars without a human safety driver as of last month, according to an engineer close to the testing and a former employee. That’s a crucial step required before Tesla can launch the pilot service for customers.
For comparison, before launching its paid ride service in Austin, Waymo tested its vehicles with safety drivers in the area for 6 months and then without safety drivers for another 6 months.
Waymo has now taken over a significant market share of ride-hailing rides in the Texas capital, but it still has limitations; for example, it doesn’t drive on the interstate.
The report also mentions that Tesla has been working with local emergency services in Austin to develop intervention plans in order to avoid causing issues if its autonomous vehicles fail.
Electrek’s Take
This is the biggest softball goal. It’s a fraction of what was promised, it’s something that others have achieved before. It’s a punt created for Tesla to finally get a “win” in self-driving.
If they can’t even make it, it would be disastrous, but at least, I hope that it will finally open the eyes of many Tesla shareholders to the reality that Tesla is actually behind in autonomous driving and that Musk’s latest claims that Tesla will have “millions of robotaxi on the road” in 2026 are just the same as when he claimed it would happen in 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019: corporate puffery.
My main concern now is for public safety. I have little hope of US regulators being able to stop Tesla considering Trump is firing anyone who got in Musk’s way after he gave him over $250 million.
If Tesla brings its cowboy approach to this, it could get bad quickly.
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The development of Rivian’s R2 validation builds continues to progress. We know so because the American automaker’s founder and CEO, RJ Scaringe, continues to pepper us with welcome updates with plenty of fantastic images. The latest post features the inner workings of Rivian’s Maximus drive unit, which will propel the upcoming R2 EVs when they hit the market next year.
Another day, another exciting social media update from RJ Scaringe. Nine days ago, the Rivian CEO shared a peek at the company’s new Maximus drive unit, designed to be more compact and efficiently built to help reduce cost-per-unit production.
Our only look was from outside the drive unit’s casing at the time, but it was exciting news nonetheless. As an encore, Scaringe posted photos of the R2 validation builds on a pilot line at the automaker’s facility in Normal, Illinois.
This evening, Scaringe took to Instagram and X once again to share a better look at the inner workings of the Rivian Maximus drive unit. Check it out:
RJ shares more images of Rivian’s Maximus development
Rivian’s CEO posted the three images above, which showcase some interesting perspectives of the developing drive unit. As previously shared by Rivian, Maximus uses a new continuous winding technique that reduces the total welds per stator and thus the total overall cost of building each one.
For comparison, Rivian’s current Enduro drive unit requires 264 stator welds, while Maximus only needs 24. You can see the stator windings in the image above to the left. Scaringe shared excitement in the progress of the Rivian team’s Maximus drive unit as well as some insight in his post:
I love the packaging on Maximus — the drive unit for R2. It has a side mounted inverter that utilizes flat area at the end of the motor to minimize the length of bus bars, keeping them light and efficient. The large planar shape also allows all processing and power electronics to exist on a single printed circuit board.
The inverter chassis closes out the oil cooled motor cavity and seamlessly routes coolant from the power modules to the drive unit’s heat exchanger with no extra parts.
Overall, the inverter part count is reduced by 41% relative to Enduro and structural inverter lid saves more parts and fasteners by also serving as the drive unit mount. I love this design efficiency. (heart emoji)
Looks fantastic, RJ. We can’t wait to see the visual progress of the R2 you share next!
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On today’s thrilling episode of Quick Charge, we’ve a huge spike in global EV sales and a huge dip in Tesla deliveries. Plus a whole bunch of news from Toyota, including an updated bZ that’s just a bit better than before … but is a bit better going to make a big difference?
We’re also on track for more than 1 in 4 new cars sold this year to be electric, with a whole lot more hybrids coming in to make up the difference and drive fuel demand down to a new yearly low. All this, plus the top 5 cheapest EVs to insure when you hit the play button.
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