Cybertruck was probably the last gasp for the fumes of Elon's impenetrable (at the time) persona of a wunderkind. This is probably where the memeing was more important than the product, which is almost certainly why the product 1) sucks and 2) is failing.
Pre-Cybertruck, it felt like Tesla cared about a product first, and the memeing was just a cute bit of personality in everything (fart modes, ludicrous speed, etc). After that, it's like _everything_ was about Elon's popularity and whether it was a good product or not was secondary.
Now that the Elon bubble burst (including my own), it's much easier to see the crazy hype bubbles he managed to spin around everything -- a poor self driving system (the hints were there), production quality issues (again, the hints were there), safety problems, etc.
My impression is that SpaceX has mainly kept out of this, but if Tesla starts to really tank I wonder if he'll turn his eyes on using SpaceX for his own ego-massaging needs.
The causation also partly runs the other way. Elon originally didn't expect to sell many Cybertrucks. They'd sell a few 10's of thousands of them, using it as a technology test bed for a "real" truck. That explains some of the weird design decisions -- a press brake is cheaper for small production runs than sheet metal stamping.
Source? I've never heard low volume expectations of the Cybertruck in 2019 or before, from Tesla or Elon or anyone else. Maybe retrospectively Musk lied and made it a test bed.
A million reservations based on optimism if you look at the specs price matrix they were offering. It turns out they can’t deliver this vehicle model of reasonable quality and for less than $80k-$100k.
> Yeah, never in a million years did I think purchasing the CyberTruck for $20K to keep my place in line would involve complete and total failure of the drive train when the converter went bad 4 days after buying it in March and waiting an additional 3 weeks for a repair with no loaner or compensation. I also never expected several additional recalls and now the inverter recall which drastically increases my risk of an accident. My CyberTruck is my primary vehicle and Tesla has informed me that it here’s no time line of when they will receive the replacement part. I think I’m well within my right to trade in a vehicle that I overpaid for that clearly doesn’t run as intended. There have been so many misleading statements about this vehicle for the last 5 years, we just accept them because what other choice do we have?
> the CyberTruck was my 4th Tesla vehicle in the last decade… Tesla service has dropped off a cliff.
Cybertruck production was halted for battery supply issues. It has already has a production rate higher than its rival EV trucks and has outsold them as well this year.
Self driving also works amazing, 90% of my driving is handled by it. Every version we are seeing step change improvements. v13 only has continued the trend.
> It has already has a production rate higher than its rival EV trucks and has outsold them as well this year.
This struck me as dead wrong, so I looked it up. You're dead wrong. BUT, you're less-dead wrong than I expected:
Estimated sales numbers for 2024 as of 11/23/2024:
Tesla CT: 16,000
Rivian R1T: 16,312
Ford F150 Lightning: 22,807
I'm honestly surprised the CT is estimated to have sold so many trucks! But the Ford sold over 40% more.
But as per the original article: Whomst amongst us can say whether the line was shut down due to low demand or to increase production / retool for a cheaper line?
Tesla is very profitable but company's evaluation is not based on car sales and their current profits off car sales. If it was it be a bubble bigger that .com bubble. Robotaxi is going nowhere and their competitors are far ahead of them and Elon keeps moving the goalposts with it (it won't ever happen). the self-driving is great until it is not, we'll unfortunately get another story (probably out of Bay Area) about someone using 13.x that crashes into something. his perception I don't think changed much on the business side - he is a great salesman - much better salesman of shit he doesn't (and might not ever) have than of the shit he does though...
and they are not even in top-10
in car sales :) even if they were their current market evaluation would be still insane without robotaxi and all other BS Elon is selling to investors
Way more is a joke. They cant even drive on on highways. They cost a lot more and themselves have frequent interventions.
No they aren't top 10 in sales yet but they do have the best selling vehicle on the planet.
And are profitable where others in the top 10 are not. Many are laden with huge debts and Nissan and Volkswagen have said they are in trouble where as tesla is not.
Pretty sure the CT is not really a truck in the way an F150 is. Plenty of folks still get trucks to use as cars, but everyone I know who got a CT replaced a large SUV and use it mostly as a car with a big trunk.
The CT isn't great as a large SUV replacement for moving people, because it lacks a 3rd row. It's also not a great ICE truck replacement due to EV trucks having terrible range when towing. But as a tech bro who doesn't do "real truck stuff" and is done having kids (2), you're right, it's a car with a big trunk.
It may not apply to Tesla, but in my industry you refit over christmas week, because you weren't going to be running the line on the 25th and 26th anyway.
And it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone, because it's all planned well in advance, and in the weeks leading up to the refit a mountain of new machinery appears in a staging area.
Ah, didn’t realize we were already due for our weekly anti-Tesla article. Gotta give everyone their opportunity to make barely topical rants about Elon.
It takes a lot more information than that to know how productive a manufacturing line is. How many shifts per day do they have? What's their preventative maintenance schedule like? Are they doing any retooling?
Any line that's not running nearly 24/7 is underutilized, but retooling can trade some downtime now for a permanent increase in output.
If a manufacturing line goes from three shifts a day to two, that's a significantly larger decrease than taking a few days off per month. Assuming that they're only ruining a single shift, and that the downtime is because they're outpacing demand, this does give us some information about what their utilization is, but even that doesn't tell us how well a product is doing.
Keeping inventories low can decrease some costs and is especially incentivized by some tax regulations, but it requires fast increases in production, which is easiest done by building out more manufacturing capability than is expected.
tl;dr: If you want to know how well a product is doing, look at the sales figures. If you want to read into the strategies the manufacturer is making, scrutinize the assembly line.
Elon Musk's current play is that he is attempting to literally occupy the federal government and the actual White House as some kind of "co-president" role he's been making for himself. Intrinsic in this position are all kinds of ways he can personally tailor policy towards his own financial preferences, in particular having direct influence over blunt instruments like tariffs to hobble competitors to his car company, as well as obviously placing ventures like SpaceX front and center over competitors such as Blue Origin.
What people should keep in mind is the general trajectory of highly influential people who find themselves riding along with this particular POTUS, mainly in that the timespan of these partnerships tends to be pretty short, almost proportionally to the general charisma of the subject, and that once ejected from the center, things tend to get pretty bad pretty fast. Rudy Giuliani is literally breaking down in courtrooms that he can't pay his bills. Clearly Musk won't have that kind of problem but once you get thrown off this particular ride, there's no getting back on.
I think it's a sign of Musk's trajectory that his reward for stanning for Trump is to become co-head of a body that has literally no power. And as you note, Trump is not known for reciprocation to people who are loyal to him.
There's a strong assumption from a lot of people that Musk has some major influence over Trump, but honestly, I would be more surprised if their friendship survived 2025... and I wouldn't be that shocked if it didn't make 2025 in the first place!
Pre-Cybertruck, it felt like Tesla cared about a product first, and the memeing was just a cute bit of personality in everything (fart modes, ludicrous speed, etc). After that, it's like _everything_ was about Elon's popularity and whether it was a good product or not was secondary.
Now that the Elon bubble burst (including my own), it's much easier to see the crazy hype bubbles he managed to spin around everything -- a poor self driving system (the hints were there), production quality issues (again, the hints were there), safety problems, etc.
My impression is that SpaceX has mainly kept out of this, but if Tesla starts to really tank I wonder if he'll turn his eyes on using SpaceX for his own ego-massaging needs.