It’s been 4 years and 1.7 million customers who have deposited Tesla’s Cybertruck pickup truck still have no information about the delivery.

Christine Eichin fell in love with Tesla’s Cybertruck as soon as she saw it in November 2019, when billionaire Elon Musk introduced this 3-ton electric pickup truck made entirely of bulletproof steel.

Upon returning to the hotel after the unveiling event, Eichin ordered this car with its outstanding features. The performance is resistant to 9mm bullets, the ability to accelerate faster than the Porsche supercar with a high roar, running more than 800km per charge makes Eichin irresistible.

With a price tag of only $ 39,900, Tesla’s Cybertruck is said to be too cheap for its features, which is expected to create a seismic moment in the pickup truck market.

As a result, more than 1.7 million customers placed orders with deposits of $100 per person. But 4 years have passed and Eichin and millions of other customers still haven’t heard from Tesla.

Although Elon Musk has pledged that the first car will roll from 2021, Tesla has not announced a delivery deadline so far.

It wasn’t until last week that Elon Musk’s home empire made a brief announcement that the first Cybertruck had been launched at its Austin factory, but this statement also caused doubt among experts when Tesla was too long behind schedule.

Besides, the fact that Tesla encountered countless difficulties, from supply chain disruptions because of the epidemic, fierce competition from other automakers that caused the market share to drop by more than 60% between November 2021 and December 2022 has made Elon Musk seem to forget about pickup trucks.

Then too busy because of the Twitter change, the founder’s $44 billion deal and billions of dollars in bank loans made people doubt the delivery date of the Cybertruck.

In addition, although Tesla is a pioneer in electric vehicles, in the electric pickup car industry, the company is behind brands like Rivian or Ford, thereby making Cybertruck customers more and more frustrated.

It’s been 4 years since the launch of the Cybertruck, while potential competitors attract all customers, Tesla still has no new information, leading to the question of whether any of the 1.7 million deposit buyers still want this Tesla home product.

Eccentric

Professor Dale Harrow of the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London said that the Cybertruck is Tesla’s “eccentric” product line when it completely goes against the company’s development and design philosophy so far.

According to Fortune, it is this eccentricity that has caused Tesla countless production troubles. Documents leaked earlier this year showed that the Cybertruck had excessive vibration and noise that delayed Tesla in finishing deliveries.

“You’re going to need more pressure to press stainless steel than other steels. But the increased pressure will create consequences such as folding along the side of the body,” Professor Harrow said.

Then the pandemic brought the Tesla factory in Shanghai to a halt, and supply chain disruptions further disrupted the supply of electronic chips and stainless steel.

As soon as supply chain pressures were partially resolved and the Shanghai factory returned to operations, Tesla faced pressure from shareholders. Slowing growth and uncertainty about the economy make investors watch more closely, demanding more returns than discovering revolutionary products.

Ironically, orders for Tesla’s older lineups are decelerating while it hasn’t launched a new model since 2020. Therefore, the Cybertruck was once expected to be a lifeline for Elon Musk, but the reality is full of difficulties.

Tough

According to Fortune, the truck and pickup market in the US is very different from conventional personal cars. Instead of focusing on urban areas like regular cars, trucks and pickups often drive in rural, desolate, rugged terrain, and this is why they have little interest in Elon Musk’s electric car revolution.

The clearest evidence is that electric truck businesses other than Tesla are struggling with piles of inventory. For example, Rivian after its initial public offering (IPO), with the 6th largest total value in US economic history, in 2021, the initial order volume was quite a lot. But now Rivian is struggling with his inventory.

Similarly, sales of Ford’s F 150 Lighting pickup electric truck were well below expectations, prompting the company to cut prices by 17% to attract customers.

Eichin herself said 75 percent of people in her hometown drive pickup trucks, but few want to switch to electric vehicles, including her construction son. The inconvenience of running on difficult terrain of electric vehicles as well as the unavailability of a charging system makes gasoline pickup trucks still the No. 1 preferred choice.

For this reason, GMC has launched the Hummer electric car running in the city, emphasizing the tunnel styling rather than the feature of crossing passes and wading streams. However, in the first quarter of 2023, GMC will only sell two Hummers.

Going back to the story of the Cybertruck, Tesla expects to sell 250,000 of these products per year and even 500,000 units when the factory is running at full capacity.

That’s almost unthinkable considering the popular gasoline-powered Hummer pickup truck sold just 70,000 units during its heyday in the mid-2000s.

The future is dim

According to Fortune, the Cybertruck will certainly not have a budget price of $ 39,900 for the masses as announced during the launch ceremony in 2019. In October 2021, Tesla removed the Cybertruck’s price listing from its website.

Clearly, reality is far from the ideal that has brought Elon Musk back to reality. Challenges in stainless steel pressure technology have prevented Tesla’s pickup trucks from lowering costs as desired.

Even during the 2022 shareholder meeting, Elon Musk himself had to admit to adjusting the price of the Cybertruck due to technical misjudgment.

By comparison, a gasoline-powered Hummer costs $90,000 and Tesla’s electric bulletproof pickup certainly won’t be too cheap.

Another issue that worries many people is that the names of Tesla and Elon Musk are being affected quite a lot from Twitter. The fact that the Tesla founder spent money on loans to buy this social network and then fired en masse, there are scandalous attitudes and statements that affect the reputation have made many people abandon Elon Musk’s electric car company to buy from rivals.

Harris’ annual reputation rating survey in the US shows Tesla has dropped 50 places compared to 2022. In the fourth quarter of 2022, Tesla said it sold 34,000 fewer vehicles than it produced.

To compensate, Elon Musk has directed discounts of up to 20%, thereby boosting sales but eroding profit margins. In the first quarter of 2022, Tesla’s profit margin reached 30%, 1 year later, this number has halved.

“I’m a Tesla fan, but definitely not an Elon Musk fan,” Eichin said.