THe lists famous flops in the automotive industry is long and corrected, surmounted by stinks like Edsel from Ford and Pinto explosion and the SUV of Crossover Pontiac Aztek from General Motors. Even the DMC-12 in stainless steel by John Delorean, emblematic of its role in the films “Back to the Future”, was a sales failure that led the company to bankruptcy.
Elon Musk’s pet project, the Tesla Cybertruck garbage dumpster, is now at the top of this list.
After a little more than a year on the market, vehicle sales of 6,600 pounds, at a price of $ 82,000, are ridiculously lower than Musk predicted. Its ugly reputation of quality – with eight reminders in the last 13 months, the last for body panels This fall – and a polarizing aspect made a punchline For comedians. Unlike past automobile flops that seemed to be ridiculous or poorly sold, the Musk truck is also a focal point for the global Tesla demonstrations stimulated by the role of Doge and the Maga policy of the billionaire.
“He is up there with Edsel,” said Eric Noble, President of the Carlab Council and Professor at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California (Tesla’s design chief, Franz von Holzhausen, who styled Cybertruck for Musk, is a graduate of his famous program of transport design). “It’s a huge swing and a huge radio.”
“I do not do any market research.”
Judged only on sales, Cybertruck de Musk actually does much worse than Edsel, a name that has become synonymous with a disastrous product. Ford hoped to sell 200,000 Edsels per year when he reached the market in 1958, but only succeeded 63,000. Sales plunged in 1959 and the brand was abandoned in 1960. Musk predicted that Cybertruck could see 250,000 annual sales. Tesla sold just under 40,000 in 2024, her first full year. There is no sign that the volume is increasing this year, with a downward sales trend in January and February, according to Cox Automotive.
And the overall sales of Tesla fall this year, deliveries falling in 13% in the first quarter to 337,000 units, well below the consensual expectations of 408,000. The company did not explode the sales of Cybertruck, which is grouped with the S model and the X model, its most expensive segment. But it is clear that Cybertruck sales were injured this quarter by the need to make correction related to the recall, said Ben Kallo, actions analyst for Baird, in a research note. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
The quarterly slowdown underlines the fact that, with regard to cybertruck, the results are far from being near the carnival carnival of the billionaire entrepreneur.
“The demand is outside the graphics,” he sang during a call for results in November 2023, just before the first units started to ship to customers. “We have over a million people who have reserved the car.”
In anticipation of high sales, Tesla has even changed its Austin Gigafactory so that it can produce up to 250,000 cybertrucks per year, capacity investments that are not likely to be recovered.
“They didn’t just say they wanted to sell a lot. They have been capacity to sell a lot,” said industry researcher Glenn Mercer, who heads the Cleveland consulting firm GM Automotive. But the hypothesis of a massive request turned out to be reckless. And he did not take into account self-inflicted injuries that have hampered sales more. It turns out that the Elephantine cybertruck is too large or not in accordance with the safety rules of pedestrians of certain countries, so there are few possibilities to strengthen sales with exports.
“They have not sold much and it is unlikely in this case that foreign markets can save them, even China which was huge for Tesla cars,” said Mercer. “It’s really just for this market.”
A cybertruck led by demonstrators to the Tesla exhibition hall in Somerset, Massachusetts.
UCG / Universal Image Group via Getty Images
More than a decade before Cybertruck occurred, Musk hinted that Tesla would end up making a kind of electric collection. When he revealed his conception to the world for the first time, Musk was clear that he did not want a conventional aesthetic or even something that played with the collection a little, but was always familiar, the approach that Rivian adopted with his R1T collection.
“The vans have been the same for 100 years”, and Cybertruck “looks like nothing else,” said Musk, who, earlier this month, proudly said to an audience at a conference for space entrepreneurs, “I do not do any market research.”
It would be an appropriate slogan for the absurd collection of Musk. “Cybertruck’s spectacular failure was a failure of empathy,” said Carlab Noble, whose company helps car manufacturers develop products based on consumer research. “Everything, from the configuration of the bed to the cabin configuration through its performance and all kinds of van cycle problems, it is simply not empathetic for a van buyer.”
The distinctive look of Cybertruck results from two key forces, said a person familiar with the development process, who asked not to be identified because the information is not public. One was Musk’s passion for science fiction designs. The other was an early decision to create a vehicle that didn’t need to be painted.
If Tesla has chosen not to paint trucks, he would not need to install a new painthop of $ 200 million, a great potential economy. And he would not have to worry about examining the EPA for harmful emissions and the runoff that these installations often produce.
“They drooled so as not to spend 200 million dollars on a painting workshop, but probably spent as much trying to operate stainless steel.”
In the end, Musk opted for an exterior in stainless steel, the same choice as Delorean made for his unhappy sports car four decades earlier. But because Musk is not a production engineer, he may not have fully appreciated the challenges he presents in relation to aluminum or composite materials, said the person. Aside from the fact that stainless steel shows hand fingerprints – a common reproach on cooking devices – it is difficult to bend and likes to return to its original shape, one of the reasons why there have been problems with Cybertruck bodywork panels.
“This is where I think they misinterpreted the compromise,” said Mercer. “They drooled so as not to spend 200 million dollars on a painting workshop, but probably spent as much trying to operate stainless steel.”
The development of Cybertruck, including tool expenditure to do so in Austin, has probably cost Tesla about $ 900 million, he said. And unlike the other vehicles of the company, such as the Model 3 sedan and the Crossover Model Y, it does not seem that Cybertruck shares all development and production costs with other Tesla products.
“Does he have a demonstrated technology that could be used elsewhere by the company? This is not the case,” said Mercer. “Can the manufacturing plant do all these other things based on investments for Cybertruck? No, it can’t. An unpainted stainless steel vehicle simply does not have much traction.”
There have been bad omens from the start. During the vehicle unveiling in November 2019 to the raucous fans of Tesla in Los Angeles, a demonstration of the “armor” glass allegedly to the cybertruck test by Musk and Von Holzhausen went hilarious when a steel ball launched the vehicle broke out the window on the driver’s side twice.
“Oh my fucking God,” said a grieved musk. “We will repair it in office.”
Then there was the price. Musk had promised that a basic version of the vehicle with 250 miles of reach would start at $ 39,900. He had left about half.
Currently, the basic version of the truck, at an ostensibly price at $ 72,490, costs $ 82,235 before a federal tax credit of $ 7,500 that President Trump promised to eliminate. It claims up to 325 miles of range – if you do not trailer anything or do not drive too quickly. The high -end version “Cyberbeast” is $ 105,735 and too expensive for credit.
Although Tesla does not make the entry -level version that Musk promised in 2019, the diver of resale values made the used cybertrucks a little more affordable, according to the new car site Jalopnik. You can get a slightly used for less than $ 70,000, assuming that you are comfortable with the implicit risk of vandalism. And prices could further drop, exacerbated by about $ 200 million in unsold inventory on which the company is seated, Tesla Fansite Electrek said this week.
In the end, Musk cursed the Cybertruck by ignoring the reasons why people buy vans – to transport things and drive well in all -terrain conditions. The vehicle is not competent in one or the other of these things, as has been constantly documented in scathing criticism, a constant flow of “Cybertruck Fail” videos and a “cyberstuck” sub-curriculum of 280,000 members. Adding to embarrassment is a sub-genre in developing videos showing the hindered cybertrucks towed safely by Ford F-150 or GM Silverados.
“If there is something that the Detroit three can do, they are full -size vans with extremely loyal buyers,” said Mercer. “He launched Cybertruck in the teeth of the hardest segment to crack.”
By Jake Nisse Posted: 15:10 HAE, April 4, 2025 | Update: 15:24 HAE, April 4,…
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