Elon Musk Has Confirmed That Tesla's Cybertruck Is Delayed Until 2023
If patience is a virtue, Tesla enthusiasts may soon be saints.
Both Tesla's Roadster and Cybertruck are officially delayed until "hopefully next year," said CEO Elon Musk during a Wednesday earnings call, according to an initial report from The Verge.
This confirms earlier hints that the next-gen electric pickup truck wouldn't make it to market this year. And neither will the Roadster.
Cybertruck isn't coming in 2022, despite modifications
"If we were to introduce new vehicles, our total vehicle output will decrease," said Musk during the call, according to the report. "We will not be introducing new vehicle models this year." The Tesla CEO also replied to a question about the availability of a $25,000 electric vehicle, negating the possibility. "We are not currently working on a $25,000 car." This comes several months after the first suspicions were aroused in August, when the all-electric automaker's webpage for online reservations changed, and then taken down from the site. Musk initially declared that only a handful of Cybertrucks would reach customers by the end of that year. That didn't happen.
But it raises the question, will future Cybertruck owners get a better product, because of the delay? As of writing, the next-gen EV pickup truck has already undergone alterations and modifications, including a new and bizarrely large single windshield wiper, combined with conventional mirrors, and an "invisible" door handle that was leaked in a walkaround video, according to The Verge. Then, on Tuesday, Musk said he'd taken the Cybertruck prototype for a test drive around the Gigafactory in Texas.
Supply chain issues are to blame, says Musk
Musk says Tesla couldn't launch any new vehicles this year because of the ongoing supply chain issues presently affecting the world's economy. During the conference call that came after the firm's released Q4 2021 financial statements, Musk explained that, since the parts for Tesla EVs are sometimes shared (like computer chips), adding more vehicles to the production line wouldn't increase the supply of vehicles. Meanwhile, more than 1 million people had reserved the next-gen electric pickup truck, and now they seem left to wonder what's coming next. There were no announcements of improved specs or new modifications coming for Cybertruck, and we still don't know when, for certain, it will finally hit the market.
Some might say that this may put Tesla behind in the drive to lead the national pivot away from fossil fuel vehicles, and if it does, Ford, Rivian, and other EV manufacturers might overtake Musk's firm, at least, when it comes to raw production volume. There's much at stake in the EV race, and it's reached the point where nearly every delay or change in plans contains within it causes that circle the world, and reveal the deteriorating state of various industries under the austere constraints of years of coronavirus-related measures, mounting international tensions, and a new industrial revolution on the horizon. Time will tell where or when the Cybertruck ultimately lands.
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