Yesterday, Tesla achieved a milestone we’d never thought it would reach—its oft-delayed Cybertruck, the company’s ambitious and angular stainless steel-skinned pick-up truck, has finally entered production. The world’s most prolific electric vehicle manufacturer tweeted the news by saying “First Cybertruck built at Giga Texas,” referring to its gleaming new factory and headquarters in Austin.
We’re likely still months away from the Cybertruck actually ending up in owners’ hands, however. As Electrek suggests, the vehicle is likely a production intent prototype used to validate and refine the production process before the finalised cars are built and sold. This is in line with Tesla’s timeline of starting production in the summer ahead of deliveries at the end of the third quarter, although that latest schedule represents a two-year delay from the 2021 release window mentioned in that infamous reveal event back in 2019.
It also appears that Tesla is hiding a few details of the final Cybertruck by surrounding it by a throng of workers, instead of putting it front and centre. Might we see a new front end design or different wheels? We can at least pick out some of the production-spec details that weren’t shown four years ago, including the triangular door mirrors and an absolutely massive single wiper—both of which were already present on the beta prototypes shown back in March.
Now, you might be wondering, given that Tesla will be making its Malaysian debut this week, whether the Cybertruck will eventually be launched here. As our market is a big one for pick-up trucks, it would make sense, right?
Well, hold that thought.
Firstly, Malaysia will likely get their Teslas from the Gigafactory in Shanghai, just like our neighbours Thailand and Singapore. This factory isn’t slated to receive the Cybertruck, which has been designed for North American markets in mind and will likely be left-hand drive only. A related point is that Americans favour full-size trucks instead of the one-tonne trucks popular here, and the Cybertruck is huge.
During the 2019 reveal, Tesla said the Cybertruck would be 231.7 inches long, which works out to an insane 5,885mm—longer than a Rolls-Royce Phantom. It’s been rumoured that the company has made it slightly smaller to fit regular American garages, but even then, the Cybertruck would handily shade any one-tonne truck sold here. By comparison, the Ford Ranger Raptor, which is already enormous, is only 5,381mm long. You wouldn’t want to park this in a regular Malaysian parking space, that’s for sure.
And then there’s the price. Tesla claimed the Cybertruck would start at USD 39,900 (around RM181,040) back in 2019, but it has already confirmed it would not be able to hit that target. That’s not surprising given the staggering inflation the world has experienced since the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the fact that the Cybertruck will have several novel features, including a stainless steel exoskeleton, armoured windows and rear-wheel steering. Expect the actual pricing to sail way past that figure.
As for specs, when the Cybertruck was revealed, it was going to be offered in single-motor, dual-motor and triple-motor variants and was tipped to get from zero to 60mph (97km/h) in as low as 2.9 seconds and have a range of over 500 miles (805km). A lot has changed since then, however, so we’ll have to wait for the finalised specs to be sure.
