Against better judgement, I’m going to write a post about the Cybertruck. Before I begin, I know this vehicle needs no further comment or coverage; its literally been the bane of my Twitter (X) feed the last 2 weeks and has received a nauseating amount of two types of posts:
- Elon Fanbois/People Long Tesla: These people love Elon, are bullish all things Cybertruck and cite select performance data and love the looks.
- Elon Haters/People Short Tesla: These people hate Elon, hate the way it looks and are positive its going to cause some undoable harm to Tesla.
This post is going to fall into neither of these “camps”. Instead, this is intended to ask the broader question: Is the Cybertruck a legitimate electric alternative for “truck people”?
My answer? Probably not.
I’m going to take a cultural and psychological approach to answering this question, not a purely quantitative approach. That said, I do think its important I start by showcasing some basic stats and performance metrics of the truck, which comes in 3 trim levels. For the purpose of this post, I’m going to only focus on the mid tier variant being it has the longest range, AWD and is priced in the middle of the models.
Specs of the AWD “Mid Tier”
- 340 Estimated Range/122.4 kWh battery
- Using my formula, this results in a ~15 gallon tank if it were gas; I’m guessing the 340 mile range will be far less if driving above 65mph.
- 4.1 Second 0-60
- 600HP
- 11,000lbs towing limit
- Price $69,000 (est)
- Clearance 12-17″ (adjustable)
- Bed size: 6×4 (no alternative options)
- Payload: 2,500lbs
On paper, this is an impressive truck in a handful of categories including acceleration and clearance. However, when it comes to pure versatility, towing and range the vehicle shows some material problems for your average truck buyer. Before I get into this, I want to post a few truck market statistics for our musing…
- Total Trucks Sold: Approximately 1,987,524 full-size trucks were sold, including Toyota Tundra and Nissan Titan.
- Rivian R1T Sales: Rivian R1T sold about 20,332 units.
- Ford F-Series Sales: The Ford F-Series, including the F-150, was the best-selling pickup, with 653,957 units sold.
- Ford F-150 Lightning Sales: The F-150 Lightning, in its first year, sold 15,617 units
- EXPECTED Cybertruck deliveries 2024: 100-120K
The pickup truck is an interesting vehicle, and some might argue the “essence of Americana”. Go anywhere else in the world, and you are unlikely to see the same number of pickups on the road. The reason is very simple: most people do not need a pickup truck in their daily life. If you were to take the driving you do day to day, week to week, month to month and categorize the number of times you actually needed a higher clearance vehicle that you can throw stuff into the bed (that couldn’t go into a…trunk), I think we’d find most drivers could drive a Subaru Outback 98-99.8% of the time. Those times where the truck is warranted, a person could easily rent (or borrow).
In fact, the reason we all love our pickup trucks has a lot more to do with our American wiring, and the stories we tell ourselves.
Nothing reflects this better than the guy (yes, its going to be a guy) driving down the highway at 85mph in a lifted truck rolling on 35″ tires getting 11 mpg. In all of my years in the mountains, on rough roads, in the backcountry or similar, I’m yet to see one of these trucks do something my completely stock 20 year old diesel truck cannot do (or a Subaru Outback for that matter). This guy is sacrificing on road performance, miles per gallon, acceleration and the ease in which he can get into the vehicle all for a story.
He “built” this vehicle for a narrative in his head; the proverbial zombie apocalypse or other outlandish once in a 100 year event. For the “you never know”. For that one time you might actually need this configuration to get from A-B. While completely nonsensical, I’d argue most pickup drivers fall into this camp, even if they drive a dead stock F-150 with a 5 foot bed (when a more economical, easy to drive, cheap to operate vehicle would suffice).
The pickup truck is an example of freedom. Freedom comes in the form of “going however long you want, to where ever you want, for as long as you want”. You know what doesn’t feel like freedom? Being unable to tow (video on this below), a relatively limited range and being unable to charge in remote places. This is the antithesis of the Freedom Machine that the pickup truck really is.
But you don’t have to take my word for it, Ford is already having trouble selling their F-150 Lightnings, which by all accounts is a pretty good EV. Yes, they might be too expensive, and might take too long to charge, but if America’s Truck Brand(TM) can’t move an electric truck with a decent range, then perhaps the average truck buyer is more anxious about the ills of electric than Tesla thinks.
Lets discuss the towing claims Tesla makes. While 11,000 pound towing ability isn’t bad, my expectation pulling something around 4,000-5,000 pounds by the Cybertruck will cut the EV’s range down by half to one-third. This is completely unacceptable for anyone looking to actually go on a road trip with their toy hauler, boat, RV etc. I’d run the math on this, but Engineering Explained already did a great job of this.
There are other obvious problems with the Cybertruck such as the bed only coming in one size (6×4), the lack of camper/topper options (though I’m sure this will change) and its love-it or hate-it looks. Ultimately however, there will be buyers for the vehicle at first. Hell, if money were no object, I’d happily trade my Model Y Perf in for one. However, there is no way I’d trade my diesel truck for one, and I think that is the bigger story here.
This is a truck for car guys. A truck for people who really don’t need a truck even in the 1% of situations truck owners need a truck. How many buyers are there for this kind of vehicle? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t bet on this one being the banger the 3 or the Y has been for the company. That said, I feel incredibly confident there are 100K buyers in 2024 for the vehicle, so I would not take anything here as a “short” position against Tesla. I’m just suggesting the TAM of this truck is NOT the 2M number atop this post.
In order for the company to actually tackle the American Truck Market, we’d need a substantial change in the range these vehicles can offer, which as my other post has shown – is unlikely anytime soon.
Regardless, its a fun time to be alive, and I’ll be the first to admit I want to ride in one…
👍🏼👍🏼
This is correct analysis. This cyber “truck” is going to Costco, not the mountains. I also see it as a model Y upgrade. It’s for Tesla people who want something new and different.