The long-delayed reveal of Tesla’s Cybertruck left many critics fuming over the “disappointing range” and “abusive pricing” of Elon Musk’s strange-looking electric pickup truck.
Tesla finally provided Cybertrucks to a handful of owners, including Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, during a splashy event at the company’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, on Thursday.
The roughly 30-minute presentation was broadcast live on X and hosted by Elon Musk, who described the stealth bomber-style vehicle as Tesla’s “best product” and the “best in apocalyptic technology.”
Tesla fans, however, were left with a surprise and another year of delays before the stainless steel trucks rolled off the assembly lines.
The base rear-drive version of the Cybertruck costs $60,990 and is not expected to ship until 2025. The mid-level all-wheel-drive Cybertruck costs $79,990 and the top-level “Cyberbeast” costs $99,990.
The premium Cyberbeast supposedly tops out at about 320 miles. When the Cybertruck was initially announced in 2019, Musk said the highest-end model would cost $77,000 and have a range of about 500 miles.
Tesla shares sank nearly 2% in early trading on Friday.
Reddit users denounced the “disappointing autonomy (and) the almost abusive price of the vehicle considering what was promised.”
Others said they were “totally disappointed” by the highly publicized delivery event, complaining about “the lighting.” The presentation. Everything just sucked.”
Tesla investors had been eagerly awaiting concrete details about the Cybertruck amid a series of reports (and warnings from Musk himself) about how difficult the truck is to manufacture. The vehicle features an expensive stainless steel frame that is difficult to shape and prone to defects without careful supervision.
Industry analysts were also skeptical of what they had seen. Needham analyst Chris Pierce told The Post that “the response appears to be disappointing” and noted that Tesla’s truck “doesn’t have any significant range advantage” compared to its main rival in the electric vehicle market. , Rivian.
“To me, that’s the most surprising thing: TSLA created a truck that is similar in specs (but not design) to Rivian, instead of being able to offer something with technological advantages from the lessons learned as a standard for electric vehicles,” Pierce said .
Prominent tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, known for his in-depth product reviews, described the Cybertruck as “notably the first time Tesla has failed to deliver on some of the key specifications it promised.”
Brownlee noted that the highest-end model, the Cyberbeast, has less range and a higher price than Tesla initially claimed.
Meanwhile, Gene Munster, a Tesla investor and managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said Bloomberg that the Cybertruck was “a lot more expensive than I thought.”
“They need to increase production to lower the price, and they know they won’t be able to produce many next year,” Munster said. “The reality is that the Cybertruck has not yet come to market.”
Earlier this fall, experts told The Post that the Cybertruck was more likely to be a niche entry in Tesla’s product lineup.
The delivery event included several demonstrations of the Cybertruck’s supposed prowess, including images of its bulletproof doors withstanding gunfire and its top-of-the-line model winning a drag race against a Porsche 911.
“If Al Capone showed up with a Tommy gun and emptied the entire clip into the car door, you’d survive,” Musk joked at one point during the presentation.
At one point, Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen gently threw a baseball through the window of the Cybertruck, a callback to the disastrous incident at the 2019 launch event, when he smashed one of the truck’s windows with a metal ball.
Musk also touted some of the more impressive specs, like the Cyberbeast’s 11,000-pound towing capacity that bests Ford’s electric F-150 Lightning and its ability to go from 0 to 60 mph in 2.6 seconds.
“We have a car here that the experts said was impossible, that the experts said would never be made,” Musk added. “I think it is our best product. It is the most unique thing along the way and finally the future will look like the future.”
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, a prominent Tesla bull, also gave an optimistic view of the launch, arguing that the Cybertruck is a critical display of the technological prowess that has allowed the company to build a dominant position over the vehicle sector. electrical.
“While Cybertruck does not significantly move Tesla’s financial needle in [2024] “It further shows the leadership in innovation and mental engagement that Tesla has built with many OEM competitors around the world still on the treadmill stuck in neutral,” Ives said in a note to clients.
