With sales down is the CT going to become a Delorean

[HaulingAss]

The F150L is in 2025. That's 2 quarters

Like I said, there are many reasons why vehicle sales fluctuate through the year. I only rely on each years sales data to determine "best-selling". Plus, the Lightning has been in production for years, it should be selling two to three times the Cybertruck by now. But it's an outdated vehicle, so I expect sales to taper off for the second half of the year.

And just like Rivian, Ford is selling the Lightnings below the cost to produce. So, those sales are costing Ford a lot of money. If I have a dairy chain, and it costs me $3.00 on average, to produce a gallon of milk, and I sell each gallon for $2.00 and sell millions of gallons, can I claim that people prefer my milk over Dairygold? I suppose I could claim the best-selling milk in America, but what good does that do me if the more I sell, the more I lose?

This is why Cybertruck sales will pass up Lighting sales by the end of the year. Ford cannot afford to sell more Lightnings.

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[HaulingAss]

In fact, there are still many rural states that don't have a single Tesla store or service center.

I think, generally, you are confusing "rural states" for states with archaic laws preventing Tesla from selling or servicing cars in those states.

 

[HaulingAss]

Friends, Tesla designed and built the Cybertruck because they wanted to, not because they had to.

In order from top to bottom priority, Tesla is:

An Energy company.
An Ai company.
A Robotics company.
An Automotive company.

What they will be doing with microgrids and coal/gas peaker plants (to utter extinction soon), autonomous driving (rideshare with robotaxi), manufacturing and processing (Optimus) will completely blow people away.

The general public is blissfully unaware of the utter behemoth that Tesla is about to become. Cybertruck sales are not even a blip on the radar. In fact, I have always seen this truck as a roaming billboard for what is coming next. A living technology demo to display the amazing things to come.

Stop reading clickbait headlines and taking them for face value; they are just delaying and denying the inevitable. Tesla is building an entire ecosystem along with SpaceX and TBC that the majority of humans can't even understand (and when I try to explain it, they immediately scoff at me).

You are one of the minority on this forum that truly understands what is going on. Most people just don't get it.

 

[REM]

You are one of the minority on this forum that truly understands what is going on. Most people just don't get it.

I try really, really hard to explain the entire plan to friends and family. Everyone thinks I'm just a neurotic fanboi ?‍

 

[dalton108]

I try really, really hard to explain the entire plan to friends and family. Everyone thinks I'm just a neurotic fanboi ?‍

Seems unfair for people to put you in those boxes. Very unfair!

Now, please return to the NERDERY immediately! NERD!!! ?

 

[SCTesla]

Like I said, there are many reasons why vehicle sales fluctuate through the year. I only rely on each years sales data to determine "best-selling". Plus, the Lightning has been in production for years, it should be selling two to three times the Cybertruck by now. But it's an outdated vehicle, so I expect sales to taper off for the second half of the year.

The CT has lower demand than the F150L, which is an old platform, 2 quarters in a row this year.

Neither is doing well and both will taper off barring big incentives.

 

[HaulingAss]

The CT has lower demand than the F150L, which is an old platform, 2 quarters in a row this year.

Neither is doing well and both will taper off barring big incentives.

Demand is a function of price. The Cybertruck would have massive demand if Tesla were willing to sell it with the same loss as Ford with their Lightning.

But, yeah, read the recent post by @REM (above) and tell me how much it matters. The Cybertruck is not going away anytime soon. It's here to stay.

 

[RoboTaxi]

We do t know how much profit is on each truck. The truck was designed to be produced cost effectively. if they sell them cheap enough even haters will buy them.

 

[YDR37]

I think, generally, you are confusing "rural states" for states with archaic laws preventing Tesla from selling or servicing cars in those states.

Examples include: Arkansas, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming. I am not confused about those being "rural states".

Now, I wouldn't be surprised if many of them also ban "direct-to-consumer" auto sales. However, you are apparently confused about Wyoming. They've been holding the door open for Tesla since 2017:

The Wyoming Legislature passed a bill that would allow Tesla, the electric vehicle manufacturer, to sell cars directly to drivers in the state — with lawmakers enthusiastically proclaiming the move will give a bump to Powder River Basin coal.

Senate File 57 changed the state’s franchise law to allow direct sale of vehicles to Wyomingites without the use of independently owned car dealerships, said Daniel Witt, a manager of business development and policy for the Palo Alto, California-based company, who lobbied for the legislation.

No one is stopping Tesla from opening stores or service centers in Wyoming. If Tesla prefers to put their facilities in places like Palo Alto (2 stores, 1 service center) instead, it's purely their business decision.

 

[SCTesla]

Demand is a function of price. The Cybertruck would have massive demand if Tesla were willing to sell it with the same loss as Ford with their Lightning.

But, yeah, read the recent post by @REM (above) and tell me how much it matters. The Cybertruck is not going away anytime soon. It's here to stay.

I can't read post by REM as they have blocked me. I agree the CT is here to stay. I doubt we see significant price cuts, but there's no reason to get rid of it, even if the profit is low (which we don't know if it is or isn't).

 

[SCTesla]

We do t know how much profit is on each truck. The truck was designed to be produced cost effectively. if they sell them cheap enough even haters will buy them.

The truck is expensive to build per Elon. There's mixed thoughts on the profits. According to Troy, they lose a bit of money on the non-FS trucks, but he's guessing.

Many think it's a low margin vehicle that even with much of the benefits stripped out (air suspension, rear screen, tonneau, outlets), it's still a $70k truck.

I doubt they are losing money and if they are, it's not a lot and Tesla will resolve that by reducing complexities or creating new ways to build it, but I don't see any massive price cuts with the current truck either.

 

[HaulingAss]

I can't read post by REM as they have blocked me. I agree the CT is here to stay. I doubt we see significant price cuts, but there's no reason to get rid of it, even if the profit is low (which we don't know if it is or isn't).

Well, it's worth reading:

Friends, Tesla designed and built the Cybertruck because they wanted to, not because they had to.

In order from top to bottom priority, Tesla is:

An Energy company.
An Ai company.
A Robotics company.
An Automotive company.

What they will be doing with microgrids and coal/gas peaker plants (to utter extinction soon), autonomous driving (rideshare with robotaxi), manufacturing and processing (Optimus) will completely blow people away.

The general public is blissfully unaware of the utter behemoth that Tesla is about to become. Cybertruck sales are not even a blip on the radar. In fact, I have always seen this truck as a roaming billboard for what is coming next. A living technology demo to display the amazing things to come.

Stop reading clickbait headlines and taking them for face value; they are just delaying and denying the inevitable. Tesla is building an entire ecosystem along with SpaceX and TBC that the majority of humans can't even understand (and when I try to explain it, they immediately scoff at me).

 

[YDR37]

The truck is expensive to build per Elon. There's mixed thoughts on the profits. According to Troy, they lose a bit of money on the non-FS trucks, but he's guessing.

Many think it's a low margin vehicle that even with much of the benefits stripped out (air suspension, rear screen, tonneau, outlets), it's still a $70k truck.

I doubt they are losing money and if they are, it's not a lot and Tesla will resolve that by reducing complexities or creating new ways to build it, but I don't see any massive price cuts with the current truck either.

The New York Times just ran an analysis of Tesla's 2Q 2025 numbers. It's paywalled, but excerpts regarding the Cybertruck are included below. The analysis found concerns with factory utilization rate:

Production increased in the second quarter, Tesla said Wednesday, suggesting that factories were operating at 70 percent capacity. But lines that produce the Cybertruck pickup, the Model S luxury sedan and Model X sport utility vehicles appear to be operating well below their potential.

Tesla is capable of producing 225,000 of those models a year, according to company figures, or about 56,000 per quarter. In the second quarter, Tesla produced just 13,400. ...

Automakers have certain fixed costs like maintenance, taxes, loan interest and energy. As a result, factories that are not churning out a lot of cars typically earn modest profits or lose money.

Unused capacity may be an especially big problem for Tesla because its production is highly automated and depends on costly machinery that requires maintenance and loses value over time, said Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, director of the Center Automotive Research in Bochum, Germany.

“You can’t lay off machines,” he said. “You have to keep paying them even when you’re not using them.”

The cited numbers appear to match Tesla's. According to Tesla, the current installed annual production capacity is 100,000 for Model S/X (in Fremont) and ">125,000" for Cybertruck (in Austin). So capacity of 225,000 units/year, or 56,000 units per quarter, seems correct. And Tesla did announce production of only 13,409 S/X/CT in 2Q 2025 (deliveries were lower at 10,394).

Based on those numbers, it does seem like the factory utilization rate for the S/X/CT is low, like around 25%. But I don't know how significant that issue is in practice.

 

[tingmo13]

I wouldn't hold my breathe. It's unlikely they invest much more time/money into engineering a new CT platform.

do you have 'source Familiar to the Matter' or it's your opinion?

 

[SCTesla]

Well, it's worth reading:

I agree with most of that. Elon would say they are an AI company first, but the rest is accurate.

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