Why Tesla’s Cybertruck has been such a flop
Despite Elon Musk’s bold predictions, the Cybertruck is, officially, a flop.
Tesla is deliberately opaque about its sales numbers on specific models, so you have to squint to get a sense of just how badly the company’s unique pickup truck is performing in the real world.
But we definitely have some idea.
Here’s what we know, based on Tesla’s deliveries (a proxy for sales) released this week: The EV maker delivered about 384,000 vehicles in total, world-wide, between April and June this year — a record 13.5% decline from a year earlier.
Zoom in, and it gets uglier for Tesla.
Tesla doesn’t break out sales of the Cybertruck, one of its premium models that Musk says was inspired by the dystopian movie “Blade Runner.” It discloses just two categories — the Model 3 and Y in one category and, in the second, “other models,” which is almost entirely the company’s legacy Model S sedan, the Model X SUV and the Cybertruck.
The company said it delivered about 10,400 “other” models in the second quarter, which itself is a huge problem for Tesla. In the same quarter last year, Tesla sold more than 21,500 “other” models. It’s hard to think of another word for a 52% decline other than a collapse.
How many of those “others” are Cybertrucks, and how many are the Model S or X? That’s not entirely clear.
But let’s look at the first three months of this year. Tesla sold about 12,900 “other” models, of which 7,100 were Cybertrucks, according to registration data from S&P Global Mobility. So a bit more than half.
It’d be safe to estimate, then, that Tesla likely sold something in the ballpark of 5,000-6,000 Cybertrucks in the second quarter if consumer trends held steady. It might even be getting marginally outsold by the F-150 Lightning and GM’s electric pickups, rivals whose sales are also falling but weren’t nearly as hyped as Musk’s brainchild.
The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.
But even in a hypothetical world where all of those 10,400 deliveries in the second quarter were Cybertrucks, Tesla would still be massively underperforming the expectations set by Musk, who told investors two years ago that he expected Tesla to be churning out 250,000 a year by 2025.
We’re halfway through the year, and Tesla has barely hit a fraction of that.
Cybertruck sales have faced a number of challenges:
Its $80,000-$100,000 price tag.
The imminent erasure of EV tax credits.
Its oddball design.
Repeated recalls, including one for an exterior steel panel falling off while the truck is moving.
The roughly 200-mile real-world range reported by owners, rather than the 500-mile range that was initially promised.
The lack of the initially-promised range extender, which quietly disappeared.
The vehicle’s intractable affiliation with the world’s wealthiest wannabe-oligarch.
The 7,000-pound car has become a symbol of the MAGA right wing and a target of vandalism.
Will the Cybertruck’s shortcomings sink Tesla? Probably not. But the stumble has become a reflection of the company’s broader turmoil.
The electric truck faces serious competition from the likes of Rivian, Ford and GM. Chinese rivals are eating into Tesla’s market share in key markets overseas, particularly Europe and China.
Tesla is on the verge of losing its title as the world’s largest EV maker by annual sales to Chinese automaker BYD. This week, BYD — which isn’t allowed in the US market — reported 1 million electric vehicles sold in the first half of this year, putting it far ahead of Tesla’s year-to-date total of about 721,000.
The Tesla faithful on Wall Street are still all-in on Musk, whom they see as a visionary and, perhaps more to the point, a showman who has made them rich.
Tesla’s stock (TSLA) is down about 17% this year, but it’s up nearly 300% over the last five years. For the ride-or-die bulls, it may not matter that Musk’s MAGA turn has clobbered the company’s core business of selling cars because he has convinced them that Tesla’s future lies in an AI-powered, driverless utopia.
And it’s Musk’s history of promises that have driven that meteoric share price increase, and, accordingly, Musk’s personal wealth.
But Musk’s promises and predictions routinely come up short. His Cybertruck is only the latest example.
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