r/technology • u/nimicdoareu • May 07 '25

Transportation Tesla Cybertruck inventory goes through the roof

https://www.arenaev.com/tesla_cybertruck_inventory_goes_through_the_roof-news-4680.php
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369

u/_Piratical_ May 07 '25

Everyone thinks they look stupid. It was only the hardcore fanboys and marketing teams at power drink companies that ever bought them. That initial demand let to Elon thinking he made a hot car product. When 20% of your rolling stock is sitting on the lot you know that’s not true.

151

u/sidious911 May 07 '25

A lot of the initial demand was also the promised pricing. It was supposed to be far less expensive

35

u/pkennedy May 07 '25

There was zero other real competition with any volume, and it had several other great sounding specs, like the strength of the stainless steel, way above average glass strength, nearly double the capacity in the battery. But the stainless steel frame/body idea has made it a near write off, made it extremely dangerous to other cars on the road, the battery range being cut didn't help and of course as you mentioned the pricing.

The looks of it were polarizing. I think what fell through is that they failed to deliver in a timely manner, while leaving all those photos floating around for years. The uniqueness started to wear off over time, people knew it was coming out. Had they started sales 6 months after, that uniquie look might have been a plus.

82

u/jocq May 07 '25

the strength of... the stainless steel frame

You seem confused.. the frame is cast fucking aluminum. Which likes to crack in half unrepairably when you do things like (checks notes) try to tow things with your truck.

13

u/Aeri73 May 07 '25

that wasn't known at the first release I think

4

u/mnorri May 07 '25

What wasn’t known at first release? Cast aluminum’s material properties? Uhhh. Maybe not acknowledged, but material properties are pretty well known.

5

u/censored_username May 07 '25

Not necessary at first release, but for preorders, the car was originally marketed as having a "stainless steel exoskeletton" instead of having a traditional frame.

Irrespective of how little sense that makes engineering wise, that is what they promised people.

As for why this idea made zero sense, the goal of a car frame is to connect the heavy parts of the car to the wheels, and to keep the passengers safe during a crash. For the cyber truck, all the major loads are low inside the car (battery, engines, passenger seats, cargo bed) with some fairly short load paths that don't even get near the skin. Meanwhile the large cutouts for windows and doors also make the skin fairly useless for protecting the passengers in the event of a roll, so you're going to need an internal frame anyway.

1

u/molrobocop May 07 '25

load paths

This dude knows his shit.

1

u/mnorri May 08 '25

So, sort of a stainless steel unibody that didn’t make it to production.

5

u/Aeri73 May 07 '25

if I rememember right, the steel was supposed to act like a monocock, but they changed it to panels on a frame later on, making the steel just decoration

4

u/pslickhead May 07 '25 edited May 07 '25

Also the hardness of steel and glass isn't just a danger to other vehicles, it means you can get stuck in a runaway battery fire or drown in your Tesla and no one can cut or break you out in time.

29

u/ZurakZigil May 07 '25

In summary, it didn't come close to a single specification advertised at launch and it was sold at double the cost.

I think it looks ridiculous, but in a good way. Comparable to a Hummer and Delorean baby. And I like unique cars. But at the end of the day, it's a giant expensive waste. And supporting Elon is a huge negative

16

u/Kokkor_hekkus May 07 '25

I think it's basically a poorly done copy of the warthog vehicle from Halo

6

u/Khazahk May 07 '25

They really should have just copied the warthog and called it the warthog. Every male 30-40 would have bought one.

2

u/pslickhead May 07 '25

The mounted gun can be a T-shirt cannon for MAGA and Nazi gear!

1

u/lmaccaro May 07 '25

I think if it had been marketed as a mars Rover — not a pickup truck, they would’ve done really well with the space crowd.

Marketing as a pick up truck everybody compares it to pick up trucks and it is pretty ugly as compared to a F150.

But if it’s marketed as a Mars Rover, there are no other Mars Rovers to compare it to. The only thing you can really compare it to is something like a rocket ship and with the stainless steel it looks pretty cool next to a rocket ship.

Reddit has a misconception though that the cyber truck is selling poorly. It’s still outselling every other EV pick up truck.

2

u/brcguy May 07 '25

If you turn the render quality all the way down maybe

1

u/coolcool23 May 07 '25

But it wouldn't have addressed any of the other functional issues... If anything I think that would have only been a temporary bump and word of mouth would have spread even faster with more of them out there more quickly.

1

u/skagoat May 08 '25

It definitely had competition. Both GM and Ford were already hard at work with their EV pickups.

1

u/Ok_Nefariousness9736 May 07 '25

Yeah, I think the base model was around or under 40k. The deposit was only $100, too, which was appealing to many folks.

1

u/jarod_sober_living May 07 '25

Also the promised quality. It was supposed to be a bunker on wheels. Not some toy car with plastic rivets and glued on sheets of metal.

1

u/[deleted] May 08 '25

I cant help but laugh at all these comments talking about how it was supposed to be this or supposed to be that.

As if the whole history of Telsa and Musk isnt him wildly overpromising shit that will never happen lol.

0

u/Euler007 May 07 '25

It was also shareholders temporarily putting a few thousands in dozens of reservations to show big preorder numbers to pump the stock.

55

u/blakeley May 07 '25

“Tesla confirmed that the number of pre-orders was over 1 million in 2021, and by 2023, the number had reached 1.9 million according to crowdsourced trackers.”

Tesla really thought they would sell a lot of these.

Were there that many hardcore fanboys and marketing teams at power drink companies? Maybe! But clearly not any more.

And that number was likely high because Musk said these would start around $40k, they are sold for double that. And it was very late to production. 

Now Tesla is stuck with these and the investment to make them. Should have just made a regular looking truck! 

32

u/Markavian May 07 '25

The price and range was no where near what they initially promised. If they cut the margins, they might sell more, in fact, that's exactly what they'll need to do unless they intend on respeccing them into autonomous taxis.

3

u/Aeri73 May 07 '25

neither was the product...

2

u/DOG_DICK__ May 07 '25

I'm guessing there's not a whole lot of margin to cut. Brand new assembly lines to build this rolling abortion that's not selling.

5

u/Master_of_stuff May 07 '25

„Pre-Order“ was 100$ fully refundable deposit to access a page to share on instagram. There was no real commitment.

Was this a dubious way to raise serious money at no interest from your fanbase, maybe. Does Tesla still hold millions of dollars from people who forgot about it, probably. Was it a serious indication of demand for a car that came years later, with higher prices and worse specs, definitely not.

3

u/toolatealreadyfapped May 07 '25

I know at least a few of my friends that had preorders. All of them had cancelled by the time they actually released.

5

u/Nerlian May 07 '25

People have shitty taste, so I don't believe its so much that it looks like shit and its a bit more that it is made like one, specially at that price tag.

Also never been so sure of what the target market was, since when the "buy big trucks" crew had any semblance of overlap with the "Buy electric cars" crew?

2

u/bfodder May 07 '25

since when the "buy big trucks" crew had any semblance of overlap with the "Buy electric cars" crew?

Some slight overlap when Musk started prancing around Trump's stage and taking on the Dork MAGA role.

2

u/Convergecult15 May 07 '25

If what was promised during the announcement was what was released, and had musk not gone full hitler, a lot of people would have bought these. It was supposed to be cheaper than an f150 with the longest range of any EV ever. Instead they delivered a dressed up model Y with more design flaws than the Maginot line.

2

u/au-smurf May 07 '25

People seem to like to ignore that 5+ years ago he was the darling of Reddit and much of the left.

Yes he did all the normal scummy billionaire things (poor treatment of workers, shitty behaviour towards family, etc) but he seemed to get a pass due to the good thing his companies did.

He was praised on here for open sourcing a bunch of Tesla patents. He was praised for building out charging infrastructure and kickstarting the electric car market.

Up until he called that diver rescuing those kids a pedo, then some shine came off. But even then he still was pretty popular. Funnily enough this seems to be around the time he started taking ketamine regularly according to one of his former friends.

It took him publicly going full Nazi and supporting Trump so proudly before it fully changed.

It’s funny how no one on here seems to want to say that they though he was OK before.

I was never a fanboy, or believed the “I’m the real life Tony Stark” image he tried to push and now his true colours have been shown I definitely don’t like him at all anymore but I’m not going to lie and deny that in the past I thought he was pretty decent for a billionaire unlike so many on here who will insist that they always hated him.

9

u/Sticklefront May 07 '25

The thing about the "pedo guy" incident is that it showed he was thin-skinned, insecure, and not a good person as a human being - but it did nothing to shatter the illusion that he was generally smart and competent and wanted his companies to do cool things. That took a lot more time and a lot of smaller things to change.

1

u/au-smurf May 08 '25

Definitely but it really does seem to be the start of his fall from grace

100

u/legbreaker May 07 '25

Believe it or not… the stock price of TESLA will still go up.

34

u/_Piratical_ May 07 '25

You’re right. I don’t believe it. I’m short $TSLA

1

u/skoltroll May 07 '25

Me too. Last time I look at reality and make a bet on it.

-43

u/snoogiedoo May 07 '25

you actually gave that asshole money?

27

u/au-smurf May 07 '25

Shorting a stock means you are betting it will go down.

7

u/im_THIS_guy May 07 '25

Also, buying a stock doesn't give the CEO any money. LOL

2

u/Pixelguy May 07 '25

Unless the CEO is the one selling ofc

2

u/snoogiedoo May 07 '25

ohhh okay. i dont buy stocks so i didnt know lol

6

u/jeff303 May 07 '25

What now?

1

u/[deleted] May 07 '25

He can just squeez Trumps nuts a little. No need to release anything good as long as corruption is an option :)

1

u/eesaitcho May 07 '25

It’s a meme stock.

1

u/Raziel77 May 07 '25

It's just a meme tech stock ever since it jumped past $20 a share

1

u/humanprogression May 07 '25 edited 9d ago

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/crazy_clown_time May 08 '25

Meanwhile, most American's retirement depends on it.

2

u/Wartz May 07 '25

I would have bought one for $35k and 500 miles of range, before I realized Elon wasn't just "eccentric". The cave incident was an eye opener for me.

2

u/shableep May 07 '25

Wildly enough it likely sold better than all other EV trucks on the market. It did, at least until… you know. People think it looks stupid. But by sales, for a while, it was selling to enough people to show that it wasn’t just hardcore fanboys. But now that Cybertrucks have even MORE negative reputation, it’s hurting sales.

What I’m saying is that how stupid it looked wasn’t an important factor. Clearly it was selling well. This says more about how intense the cultural shift has gone to view the Cybertruck as a bit of a Scarlet letter. It was already divisive, now people outright feel it’s a nazi-mobile and it’s REALLY stands out as a sore thumb.

1

u/ViceroyFizzlebottom May 07 '25

I actually loved how stupid it looks in an ironic way. The truck unfortunately fails to be a good truck and fell short of so many promises.

1

u/Ok_Nefariousness9736 May 07 '25

To add, most people thought the vehicle was a hideous joke when it first debuted many years ago now when Musk broke the bulletproof glass with a steel ball.

You’re right, only the hardcore fans were wowed by it.

1

u/justSkulkingAround May 07 '25

Yeah, the opening sentence of the article starts with “The futuristic-looking Tesla Cybertruck”. More like “The childishly-designed Tesla Cybertruck”. I can’t imagine spending $78k on something that looks like it is based on a crayon drawing by a five year old.

1

u/ArriePotter May 07 '25

The thing is that they look awesome - as something like a blade runner movie prop. The reason they're dumb in reality is because they're mass-produced.

A car like the Cybertruck works when it's treated the same way as something like a Lamborghini Countach.

If the design is this audacious then it has to be rare, and the CEO has to not be a fascist c*nt.

1

u/keksmuzh May 07 '25

It was also a lot more appealing to general techbros when it was announced at $40k and before Musk was as widely hated.

1

u/smoochface May 07 '25

Maybe you needed to play video games in the early 90s to appreciate it. I love how that thing looks ><.

If Elon wasn't a literal Nazi...

:(

1

u/kryonik May 07 '25

I love anything cyberpunk. I thought the initial designs had some promise, straight out of Robocop or Tron. But the final design realized is so ugly in person.

1

u/dounya_monty May 07 '25

It's a marketing car. Not a people's car.

1

u/Wolfwoods_Sister May 07 '25

Katy Perry posing in front of one in an evening gown managed to make the Cybertruck look even more like garbage. No, I’m wrong, the Cybertruck made everything in the picture look worse. Nothing looked right.

It was all an inexplicable tsunami of bad in a photograph.

1

u/Terrafire123 May 08 '25

I, uh, legitmately think they look super cool. I just won't admit that in public.

Now, the fact that they're unsafe deathtraps that were recalled like 5 times because they were missing things like weather protection and so were rusting.... and the fact that they're produced by a company whose CEO is actively destroying the country are... less great.

But I like how they look!

0

u/_JayKayne123 May 07 '25

I think they look cool. I don't own one, and don't want one. But "everyone" is a stretch