It feels like just yesterday we were telling you about the imminent production start of the Cybertruck. And here we are now – after over 1,300 days since the official unveil, the first customer-ready unit has just left Giga Texas! The mass production of the hotly anticipated pickup truck begins. With it, a new epoch debuts at Tesla.
The "Cybertruck is vaporware" crowd can now sit in silence. The all-electric pickup truck and its divisive exterior design are as real as they can be. The EV maker announced on Twitter (where else, right?) that the first Cybertruck meant for real-world usage has rolled off the assembly line at Giga Texas.
Surrounded by hundreds of employees, the vehicle appears to be sporting the same cold-rolled Starship steel body. The "exoskeleton unibody shell" retains the bland gray "paint job," and it's unclear whether the armored glass is there.
Tesla's CEO previously said that customers can spec the Cybertruck with any color they want, "so long as it's nothing." The designers might have figured out that an apple green boxy and angular pickup truck would be too much strain on the human eye. The good news is that wrapping experts get a fair shot at giving the Cybertruck a different look. Or, who knows, maybe Tesla will play with tempering steel at different temperatures and give buyers the option to choose from various colors like burned orange or a shade of teal.
What's visible is the "Gigawiper" that seems to be now ready for mass production. Replacing it will be interesting in both terms of cost and installation process.
Enthusiastic buyers should go beyond Tesla's marketing shenanigans and listen to engineers who said the Cybertruck wouldn't boast a state-of-the-art chassis. Instead of that promised exoskeleton, the vehicle might be built on slightly modified Model Y underpinnings.
Photo: Tesla on Twitter
Zooming on the vehicle also reveals that the front right passenger door doesn't quite align with the rear one. Let's hope this is a one-time thing, and Tesla won't have to deal with too many rejected deliveries because of fit and finish issues.
The Cybertruck has a challenging mission ahead of it. Whereas the Model 3 and the Model Y transformed the all-electric car scene and kickstarted an EV revolution, the company's first pickup truck must convince Ford and GM buyers to switch to a rather peculiar but capable zero-tailpipe emission Tesla.
Over 850,000 pickup trucks have been sold in the US so far in 2023. Over 45% of them were made by Ford, whose CEO said it makes trucks "for real people."
The question that now remains is: who will be the first customer to test if the pickup truck is as waterproof as Elon Mask claimed it to be? We'll most likely find out soon enough.
Car shows on TV and his father's Fiat Tempra may have been Florin's early influences, but nowadays he favors different things, like the power of an F-150 Raptor. He'll never be able to ignore the shape of a Ferrari though, especially a yellow one. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News