Drivers who have reserved their copy of Tesla’s Cybertruck will have to be patient. According to an article from Reuters, the pickup is finally scheduled to go into production at the end of 2023, two years later than expected.
Reuters cites two people familiar with the matter. Yet last month, Tesla said that production would begin in the middle of next year, not towards the end. This further delay also means that revenues from the delivery of these first examples of the electric truck will have to wait until sometime in 2024 when the first vehicles will have been sold and delivered to their owners.
It’s worth noting that the number of reservations for the possible angular truck is said to be around 1.5 million, and that Elon Musk already indicated earlier this spring that the automaker had enough reservations to guarantee three years of production at the Austin, Texas plant. Consumers who placed their names later will basically have to wait until 2027 before they can enjoy their new vehicle.
One hypothesis surrounding this further delay in the truck’s production start is that the vehicle would have been designed to accommodate the new 4680 batteries, but that the production rate for these cells was too slow at this point to expect the truck to arrive in an acceptable time frame. It is even possible that the truck will have to be equipped with the more conventional 2170 batteries, an avenue that would force Tesla to rethink the design of its battery pack.
All these delays only leave more room for manufacturers already in the electric truck segment, such as Ford, Rivian, Chevrolet, GMC and a few others, not to mention Ram, which has disclosed plans to showcase its Ram 1500 Evolution pickup at the upcoming CES in Las Vegas next January.
It will be interesting to see what Tesla’s strategy will be in terms of pricing for the different versions of the model. The automaker had announced that the base price would slip below $40,000 (in U.S. dollars) in 2019, a rate that could easily inflate with the monster inflation that has been affecting the global economy for the past few months.
One thing is for sure, the Tesla Cybertruck knows how to make you wait.
