Elon finally got me

[Trbizwiz]

The only way to get the discount on the app, is to use a full active link to start your order. There is no place to just enter the code. That link can be had either here from a member or some of the cybertuck youtubers list it on their channels. Since you already placed an order, you need the SC to step in. They will default to telling you it can't be done, but if you push the issue, they will oblige. Here is a referral link if they ask for 1
https://www.tesla.com/referral/javaughn59000

As a current owner I have my own link. I did get in touch with the service center this morning, and they said the loyalty discount shows on their side, but it doesn't show on my order form yet. The glitch is because I used my old Cybertruck reservation to order. My RN started with 115. Had I placed a new order, or ordered through an active link it would have shown up right away. But they assured me they see it on their side.
To be safe, if others are on the fence don't order through your old reservation, order through an active referral link. You can cancel your old reservations by going to Tesla.com, click on the person icon in the top right, to go to your account. Find your old reservation, and click manage order. Then go in the order and click manage order again. Then click cancel reservation. It'll show you the $100 refund.
I had 3 reservations I was sitting on, because I got caught up and thought these would sell for what they were first suggested, and I suspected they would be back ordered for years. So I strategically placed reservations 18 months a part so I would upgrade ever few years with out waiting forever. It turned out none of that was necessary. But I am glad to be filling that old reservation. Not sure why I did not use my oldest one, but I guess I was in a rush. I have since cancelled the other two, and got my refund for both.

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[Eka]

500 miles was (exactly like I said) the sweet spot for EV trucks (and 400 miles is the minimum) not 300. I don’t think there’s any credible argument against that at this point, but I didn’t think there was a couple of years ago when I first said it. That’s why everybody is now retreating to hybrids.

I wish I could get 500 miles in a Cybertruck. I like to go out into the wilder less populated areas of the world and spend lots of time out alone.

I’m not a respecter of persons. I do not do hero worship. Elon‘s made a lot of money off of work done by other people. In the past, he’s been a strategic monster. Lately, he’s been full of himself, cocky and overplaying his hand. More importantly, he’s been underestimating his weaknesses and blind spots (particularly when it comes to human nature). You would need to not have eyes to not see that.

He's forgotten the one thing I warned him to never forget is that he can't ever know everything so must defer to the expertise of others. Oh well, I don't control him, and he's turned a deaf ear towards my input because he doesn't understand how bit-slice and slide rules make some insanely compute intensive calculations possible.

Optimus? It’s a matter of trust outside of industrial applications an inside of industrial applications? I think Tesla is going to be using its own robots but I’m not sure how many corporations are going to want an army of walking cameras and microphones gathering every bit of data in the plant/warehouse/office for a mercurial guy who might turn on you on a dime. And has no compunction about being arbitrary and vindictive. For lots of reasons, I think that’s going to be a tough sell.

I’m still ruminating on the bot thing. All I’m sure of at this point is it’s not going to go anywhere near as quickly as Elon is projecting. Not necessarily for everyone, here, I’m talking about Tesla specifically because of the trust issues that he has unnecessarily created.

Even without AGI the bots are worth trillions. The AI they have now could replace more than 25% of the manufacturing workforce. Training is still too compute intensive, but I see it becoming reasonable soon.

Re: Mars

On Mars, Bud: If you haven’t taken a look at what Neil deGrasse Tyson said you need to do so. He absolutely torpedoed that on every level (in plain, logical, simple English) it’s an absolute nonstarter and Elon has effectively capitulated to that viewpoint. Sorry, we’re not going to Mars. Not during the natural lifetime of basically anyone alive today, anyway.

Here’s a very uick and dirty overview of what he said on the October 2025 “Diary of a CEO” podcast. Key reasons why this isn’t non-possible:

• Extreme Timeline:

- 9 months one-way; 3–5 years round-trip with alignment waits (you can’t do it until the planets realign to make it feasible with our current technology to even make the trip home).

- various unsolved logistics, radiation, and isolation.

Never say never. People who say never have blinded themselves. Go back to fundamentals and truly look at what really needs to be solved. Break it down into it's parts and solve each part or find other solutions. If you don't know how, find experts who do. NOBODY, I REPEAT NOBODY can know everything. It is impossible. Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks if he can't see a solution, it can't be done. That's stupid thinking. All it means is he can't see a solution. Sure, we will try many things to colonize the Moon and Mars. Many will fail at achieving 100% of their objectives. We will learn from those failures and try new solutions.

Most people have zero clue to the scale of the Mars colonization plans. 10 synods in a 1000 plus Starships are heading to Mars every synod. That's a heck of a lot of equipment, supplies, and people. That's a heck of a lot of minds to solve problems with. And yes, I understand the scale of the effort. You would be shocked at how many technologies are needed to make a bow and arrow, let alone a car or chip fab. We must produce that all on Mars in a manner that it can make or replicate anything needed. Then there is the biological side. No, not the food side, but the disease side. While I know a lot about it, I know extremely little compared to people like my dad who researched microbiology his whole life.

- even Elon’s most ambitious timeline is it would take 20 years to get this off the ground. Not to do it, but to be ready to do it, maybe. In 20 years both me and Elon will be in our mid to late 70s! I was born the day that Neil Young took those first steps on the moon! I’m all about the idea of space exploration, but the name of that movie is, “No Planet for Old Men.”

I was a distraught preschooler when they didn't live cover the Apollo 13 launch. I wanted to see the rocket launch. That is one of my oldest memories.

All I'll say is the expectation was when he started The Project is he would not live long enough to see it finished. Neither would I and I have multiple 100+ year old ancestors. It is literally a multi generational project and that was known back in 2002. Concentrating on Moon now will delay the Mars start about 10 years. It also will help Mars colonization go smoother, and may not delay the completion. Might even speed it up because we'll be able to iterate faster on the moon.

• No Economic Incentive:

Known from day one. It literally is a gift to the future of humanity. Greed isn't the only driver. In 2002 he thought the only thing he could afford to do to get humanity colonizing space was to put a greenhouse on Mars. Many of us had been thinking about how to do get space colonization going, but we didn't have the money or political influence. Musk had the seed money. I pointed out to him many ways to generate the rest. One of them was getting NASA launch contracts.

The non space based money making method I knew about: In 2002 the citizens of the US spent $billions a day on gasoline to move their cars. What if you could tap into that need to go from place to place and make a battery EV car with real usable range? The tech was mostly known in 2002, it was just waiting for somebody to take the chance and spend the money to bring the experts together to put it all together into a car plus a charging system and solve the pesky little details that blowout timelines. Of course solving all that gets one the technologies needed for grid scale battery systems for storing solar and wind power you sell to the battery EV drivers.

- Costs $1 trillion with zero ROI—no valuable resources or business model; private efforts are “vanity projects.”

Actually that is on the low side. Back in 2002 we estimated at least $5 Trillion, if not $10 trillion plus. Musk isn't the only one in on The Project.

All Elon Musk companies plow 100% of their earnings back into the company. The only ways you make money at them are salary, and selling your stock. Musk is building capital to spend on the Mars Project. Yeah, not a normal strategy, not defensible to a normal profits first board of directors, but one that works extremely well for building huge amounts of capital fast for solving monumental tasks like shifting the economy over to sustainable energy as fast as possible, and colonizing Mars. BTW: This scares the fossil fuel industry. It slaughters their milk cow, gasoline and diesel production, that forces the making of all the formerly waste hydrocarbons they found use for in plastics production.

• Lack of Geopolitical Drive:

- Governments won’t fund without a threat (e.g., Cold War-style rivalry); exploration alone isn’t enough.

- if China was threatening to build a base on Mars, maybe - outside of that literally forget about it.

Back in 2002 China was the only country that I could see having the money and political will to colonize Mars anytime soon. Part of why I said to Musk if he wanted to see Mars colonization in his lifetime done by the free world, he was going to have to do it himself. Neither Russia nor India had the money. China I could see having the money and will. The EU and US easily had the money, but not the political will.

• Overall Verdict:

- Probability of happening in our lifetimes is “zero.”

Never say never... Never say never...

 

[Eka]

I used to think damn, if Elon were only better at this or that he could do even greater
things but I was missing the point. Now I realize it was only Elon with all his flaws and erratic brilliance that allowed him to do something no stamped out, MBA laden CEO could ever do and every damn one of them knows it in their heart of hearts. Tesla, and Space X are arguably the best Engineering and Manufacturing Companies in the world and it is all of Elons faults and attributes that allowed that, against all odds, to happen.

As I see it Elon was the right type of fanatic to get the job done. Yes, I said fanatic. You should have seen how his eye lit up when I started talking about how to colonize Mars and pay for it. He also had enough seed money to get SpaceX and Tesla going so they could grow to fulfill their purposes in The Project.

 

[dalton108]

Never say never... Never say never...

Not in our lifetimes is not “never.” Neil’s lifetime, is less than mine and Elon’s. I don’t intend to split hairs with actuarial level precision but it’s about 20-30 years for me and EM. Even Elon doesn’t think we will be ready to go to Mars for 20 years. I don’t think this is complicated or really controvertible.

 

[AlDente]

Jeesh, talk about weird conversations (see above) and in any case, all this angst about what was "promised" back in 2019 would be funny if it were not so naive.

The silly things like "bullet proof" "it will float" and have boat like qualities were impractical and absurd. Musk did appear like a carnival barker in mentioning these things and we now know that's just part of his strange personality. At the launch "party" there was no specific mention of real world things like steer by wire or rear wheel steering nor a world class audio system. Even features that became reality like FSD and a possible five star crash safety rating were not part of the party and it's announcements.

Considering a world wide pandemic was about to happen and with normal inflation factored in, the price guesstimates (not guarantees) were not that far off the mark. The Founders Edition cash grab included options that pretty much accounted for the higher, inflation adjusted Launch pricing.

I believe this "new base model" price was implemented to assess sales volume potential based upon different price points and relative COGS numbers e.g. profit. For the consumer It represents an opportunity to purchase an amazing yet controversial product, at a very fair market adjusted level. Like all capital impacting life decisions, it's a commodity purchase, not an investment strategy. The old adage "if you have to ask the price, you probably can't afford it" comes to mind.

 

[TarheelCT]

If Autonomy on HW4 is real, this will prove to be the bargain of the century. I have been waiting on 0% financing to buy a Beast, so I don't have to sell any TSLA, but I am placing an order for this AWD today and I'll just pay cash by selling the car it replaces. That said, if Tesla offers the Beast with 0% before I take delivery, I'll convert the order to Beast, and sell the other car and buy more TSLA. Either way, I am happy with the options available. I have already started scouting seat covers. I am hoping someone offers covers with built in ventilation, like Katzkins. Ventilation is the only key feature I am missing in this model. I live in FL.

Have you found any seat covers ?

 

[Trbizwiz]

Have you found any seat covers ?

Not yet. I suspect the imported brands will jump on this with the number of trucks that sold. i did find some really sweet wheels that I had custom designed, for about 1/3 the cost of the big boys. When I get the wheels, I may share pics and specs. But I’ll definitely share when the truck comes in.

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