Is the Cyber Truck a Flop?

[5030]

After driving my Y for the last 2 years I see the majority of ICE vehicles as boring and downright ugly. My ICE coversion to Tesla experience must be like the experience going from horse/buggy to the Model T.

Choices and preferences are about individual tastes as are costs. Some folks may not like the styling og my Ford Focus RS Trubo, but I do. It's a royal PITA to get in and out of but once in the Recarro bucket seats and the 3 point racing harness gives you a sense of security even in the tiny box it is.

Getting to the point where ingress and egress is a chore so it don't get driven as much as it used to. Certinly not an old fart's vehicle and I qualify as an old fart.

 

[5030]

1000 hp passenger cars and pickup trucks have never been cheap. When viewed from that perspective, Rivian's pricing really doesn't seem so absurd.

You will always pay a premium price for premium power, no matter what it is because with the power comes the advanced technology to produce that power and my Focus RS Turbo is no exception. Never seen a 'stripped down' Fodus RS Turbo, I don't believe any exist, consequently, the sticker price new was absurd. Why, when I found mine (and it took some serious serching), I grabbed it, after researching who was the origional leasee. People don't as a rule, buy an RS turbo to drive to the grocery store and today, most people cannot drive a 6 speed close ratio manual gearbox anyway. It too kme almost 6 months to find mine and the first owner was a female, middle aged and single which told me it was an impulse lease, plus it was extremely low mileage. The RS turbo's are extremely high maintenance vehicles, something I looked at as well. The engines were made in Germany for Fords, NA and installed in the cars at Wayne Assembly and I knew every detail of it's previous life, down to the tires, before I bought it and I was still a bit apprehensive anyway.

Like I said, 99% of car buyers don't buy or lease a new vehicle the size of a roller skate with 350 ponies under the loud pedal to take to the grocery store.

Is it a hoot, sure is. It's an insane vehicle and not for the faint of heart and even though it's getting harder to get into and out of, it ain't going anywhere.

Totally impractical but we have the Burb for me to ride in while my wife drives and I'm all good with that. I like riding and not driving actually.

 

[ning]

I think the Rivians look stupid from the front but it's only the headlights/grill; the overall shape is aesthetically "normal" and the SUV looks FJ50 Land Cruiser which is in my mind about the best a true SUV could look (great for usable volume, though not necessarily for aero efficiency).

The CT is ass from any direction aesthetically.

My personal preferences for a "truck" is for a tough vehicle that I can use without much worry about anything, and that rules out a $100k vehicle regardless of engine/range/aesthetics. I don't trash my truck deliberately, but it's driven on roads that aren't kind to vehicles, and carried stuff that's big and ugly, and the truck only looks the better for it

Someday I'll likely have a hybrid or electric truck, but only if I can get the "work truck" version.

 

[NoTrespassing]

Flop or not entirely depends on what you want to spend your money on. I like my Cousin's Cyber truck but I'd never own one.

By Flop, I mean they aren't selling. It looks like they may sell 20,000 this year compared to the 250,000 or 500,000 number they threw around. Tesla doesn't break out the truck from their sales numbers so it's impossible to tell how many they sold per quarter. It looks like inventories are swelling and production is slowing.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

By Flop, I mean they aren't selling. It looks like they may sell 20,000 this year compared to the 250,000 or 500,000 number they threw around. Tesla doesn't break out the truck from their sales numbers so it's impossible to tell how many they sold per quarter. It looks like inventories are swelling and production is slowing.

NOS is a problem with every auto manufacturer which started in 2023 when interest rates started going up and inflation started getting priced into manufacturing from higher input costs. So rather than eat margin compression, pretty much everybody priced inflation into their products, which in thew automotive industry started slowing sales.

 

[5030]

I have no idea as I don't follow Tesla's trends.

 

[tacticalturnip]

Motor Trend did a comparison article, testing the CT, the Ford Lightning, and the Rivian R1T. The R1T won.

Interesting that the CT was the lightest by 200 lb, but all were near 7000 lb. The Ford was cheapest, at just under $100K, and the other 2, just over $100K. Before taxes and registration.

All lost as much as half of their range, towing a 3500# trailer.

These things weigh about as much as a Super Duty.

 

[WinterDeere]

These things weigh about as much as a Super Duty.

Yeah, that's what I want to encounter on our curvy and narrow country roads, as the soccer mom is headed around the bend in the wrong lane towards me, while yelling at a kid and texting.

 

[tradosaurus]

By Flop, I mean they aren't selling. It looks like they may sell 20,000 this year compared to the 250,000 or 500,000 number they threw around. Tesla doesn't break out the truck from their sales numbers so it's impossible to tell how many they sold per quarter. It looks like inventories are swelling and production is slowing.

If Tesla does a price reduction on the CT like they did on the 3, Y, X back in early 2023 they will probably increase sales. The CT foundation series needs to come in about $55K, instead of $75K.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

The original battery was failing, so if it had a 50 mile range it now has a 150 mile range.

Thanks for doing a great job of explaining the math as to our range experience with the 2016 Leaf SL that we bought with 22K miles in 2019 as an EV test bed.

It came with a 30 kWh battery that had no active cooling technology and chemistry that could not cope with triple digit (F) temperatures like we had last week. Back to back DC fast charging would lead to a very short battery life.

Because of the massive failure rate of the 30 kWh pack due to high air temperature usage and or back to back DC fast charging they moved to the 40 kWh battery chemistry .

While it had no active cooling system, the lithium-ion chemistry was much more stable at higher temperatures.

It was a sad day 8 months after getting the new 2020 $12,000 battery from Nissan when an 18 year old distracted driver ran a red light. Both the wife and daughter took some serious air bag injury.

The point of impact was the left siding door of an older Toyota van. The van came to rest on its roof one the wrong side of the street. Thankfully the kids were wearing seat belts and survived okay as understand it.

The new battery after the accident went 18 months without being charged and it still had about 60% charge I think when we took it to the bottom shop. It was at 90% charge when it got totaled. Over that time the battery really did not lose its state of health.

We took the F-150 to DC (Brandywine MD) to pick up the appropriate parts car .