Welcome to 2023, The Year of the Cybertruck (Predictions?)

[Ogre]

Add up your gas and vehicle payment(if you have one).

While people think the appetite for $80k+ Cybertruck’s is infinite, it is not. The current perception that demand for electric trucks is so high is because they are extremely uncommon. When there are millions of them on the road, they will sell for $40k-50k (plus whatever actual inflation is) and used ones even less.



Right now my car payment on our second car is $0 and we only put 8,000 miles a year on it with the Model Y clocking the lion’s share of miles. I sold my Tundra for $10k (A choice I increasingly regret) and could probably replace it for a similar amount. Gas costs would not be that high because we’d just use the Model Y a lot more.

There are a lot of existing trucks on the road. Exceedingly few of them have operational costs over $1000/ month.

My personal willingness to pay more than $1000 a month for a truck payment is pretty near nil. I’m a little over 50 years old and my willingness to take on $90k - 100k in debt for a vehicle which will almost certainly half in value over the life of the loan is quite small.

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[Cybertruck Hawaii]

Will 2023* be the year of the Cybertruck? This will be the year of the asterk that is subject to change.

 

[Qball]

Add up your gas and vehicle payment(if you have one).

Before pandemic and Model 3 my gas bill for commute was ~$250-$300 a month and average overall gas bill for 3 cars was ~$600 a month before any trips. Every trip was easy $300 dollars in fuel, last year's trip to NV from CA cost me about $450 when the gas price was nuts. Last year my commuter car I kept as spare filled up total of 3 times mainly because I didn't want the gas to go bad and damage the engine/fuel system.

So I basically look at payment amount for the CT then minus by $200 a month.......that's because I work from home now and parking garage at work has free or very cheap charging when I do to office.

 

[CyberKeggy]

Agreed. It will be competitive with the Rivian R1T. The R1T starts at $73k plus $1800 for destination fee. It‘s a $75k pickup truck before options.

I disagree. We know that demand is high, but Elon wants to come out and clobber the market. He wants to produce an awesome truck, with more range and features for LESS than other automakers. If he can find a way to undercut the F150 Lightning, he will. It will have to be 10K cheaper than the F150 Lightning to convince others to make the jump. Margins will still be high. He wants to win.

 

[BradSomrak]

I disagree. We know that demand is high, but Elon wants to come out and clobber the market. He wants to produce an awesome truck, with more range and features for LESS than other automakers. If he can find a way to undercut the F150 Lightning, he will. It will have to be 10K cheaper than the F150 Lightning to convince others to make the jump. Margins will still be high. He wants to win.

We all agree that he wants to clobber the competition for MY and M3, right? And yet both have remained amongst the highest priced options - if not the highest - in their respective vehicle markets. There has been no market correction to undercut the competition. Profit margin > market share, at least lately.

Why would you expect the total opposite to apply to CT?

It feels like people are taking what they want to see happen, and assigning it to what Tesla will do.

 

[Dids]

It feels to me like all of Tesla’s production timelines have been slower than expected with almost no surprises to the upside. The startup of Texas and Berlin were both months later than expected. The 4680 ramp is something like 12-18 months behind what we expected and by all accounts chemistry is still not quite right. The Gigapress is a few months later than we expected for mid-2023 production start.

I absolutely hope you are correct.

I’ve just not seen any big positive surprises in this ramp up at all and we’ve seen a lot of delays and slower-than expected ramps. Model Y production in Texas isn’t even up to 3,000 units per year after 11.5 months of production. With a May production start, Cybertruck would need to average around 2,500 trucks per month for the year hit 80k this year.

If they hit that May production start I’ll be ecstatic. If they hit 50k deliveries in the year I’ll be over the moon.

Yer, but COVID. Now that's overish.

 

[ldjessee]

I think they will only have 2 motor configurations. That seems like what they do.

For a truck, especially with towing, etc... it might make sense for the rear to always be 'live' (permanent magnet motor) and the front be able to free turn (but does not need to be clutched for that to happen).

I suspect Dual and Quad or Trio... depends on how much they want to one-up/match other manufacturers...

I think 5-10k for 2023 seems reasonable without getting crazy.

I think what it depends on is how fast they work out the kinks of the new press...

And IDRA is talking about the second 9,000 press... IF that is Tesla's press, then that would let them ramp up production of the CT faster (say by the end of 2023).

Just my 2 electrons, YVMV (Your Voltage May Very).

 

[intimidator]

Seems increasingly likely we’ll see at least a few trucks roll off the line this year so I thought a thread where we make predictions about how this all plays out. My predictions are about just the Tesla stuff I think will happen that impacts the Cybertruck, but you can go more broad if you want.

The timeline for the Cybertruck has moved so often, and the ramp of 4680s is stumbling so much, that I hesitate to predict the Cybertruck will start rolling out this summer.

I think the more expensive version, with DUAL motors, will come out first. A trickle next fall.

I am hoping mass production starts to ramp by Nov/Dec, but it could get pushed back again.

 

[Ogre]

Yer, but COVID. Now that's overish.

The May production start would be the cats meow if we hit that, I’d consider it a big victory. But even there, we’d have to average 3,000 Cybertrucks/ week production by year end which means we’d need to hit 3,000/ week by October. Need to see that Gigapress with steam coming out soon!

 

[greggertruck]

Tesla announced that their 2023 Investor Day will be on March 1st, 2023. Maybe one of us will get to go (through their lottery system of picking investors to attend in person) and see something special https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-announces-date-2023-investor-day

I think it's stupid / suicidal / desperate to show off ANYTHING until Cybertruck is "delivered" (shown final form, pricing, delivery announcement).

HORRIBLE optics to do that, I think.

 

[majingkai]

Ok！Thank you.

 

[cal]

In an earlier post someone referenced EM saying the first trucks would be quad motors. Is this true? Why would we need 4 motors when the semi only needs three? Cost of four regular motors vs three plaid motors?

 

[Ogre]

I think it's stupid / suicidal / desperate to show off ANYTHING until Cybertruck is "delivered" (shown final form, pricing, delivery announcement).

HORRIBLE optics to do that, I think.

It’s an investor call.

Investors want to see how Tesla is going to grow the company 50% per year beyond 2025. That means Gigafactory locations and their next vehicle platform should probably be announced.

They should also update us on the state of the Cybertruck since that is a big chunk of growth for 2024 & 2025 as well. I think if they were going to spill the beans on Cybertruck pricing and specs at this event they would have said more on Cybertruck.


But final price and specs come later.

 

[Ogre]

In an earlier post someone referenced EM saying the first trucks would be quad motors. Is this true? Why would we need 4 motors when the semi only needs three? Cost of four regular motors vs three plaid motors?

Cybertruck doesn’t “need” 4 motors. It is a luxury/ selling point. It will make the truck a little nicer and a little faster. That’s about it.

 

[greggertruck]

It’s an investor call.

Investors want to see how Tesla is going to grow the company 50% per year beyond 2025. That means Gigafactory locations and their next vehicle platform should probably be announced.

They should also update us on the state of the Cybertruck since that is a big chunk of growth for 2024 & 2025 as well. I think if they were going to spill the beans on Cybertruck pricing and specs at this event they would have said more on Cybertruck.


But final price and specs come later.

No dude. The annual investor day event is in person in Texas and they are discussing the "generation 3 platform". That's a new vehicle at some level.

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