Elon Musk’s fabeled Cybertruck finally arrived during Tesla’s live-streamed delivery event on Nov. 30.
Although the event signals that production has finally begun, many concerns about Tesla’s stainless steel white whale were raised by variety of different people who paint images of doubt.
Related: Tesla CEO Elon Musk pits his brand new Cybertruck against a Porsche 911
A YouTube tech personality exposed some notable flaws
YouTube tech authority Marques Brownlee released a video early on Dec. 1, where he concluded that Tesla “really got themselves something solid here,” when it comes to Cybertruck. However, he revealed some unwavering flaws with the vehicle.
His biggest grievance involves the construction of the body, which is notably made up of solid, stainless-steel panels. Brownlee explained in his video that Tesla engineers told him about the difficulty of constructing body panels with this material.
“They have these huge presses that are stamping the stainless steel, but steel has this sort of a ‘spring back effect,’ so you have to use a lot of force to stamp it in place, but then it springs back very quickly,” Brownlee explained. “So you have to stamp further than you need to go to get it to ‘unspring’ back to the part you want it to be at.”
A Tesla Cybertruck at a Tesla store in San Jose, California, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023
According to Brownlee, the natural characteristics of stainless steel is the reason why Cybertrucks have notably large panel gaps – the small spaces in between body panels – and its size can vary greatly from Cybertruck to Cybertruck.
“I’ve seen a bunch of Cybertrucks […] and they all have different levels of panel gaps, build quality in general,” said Brownlee. “I’m not going to say it is micron levels of precision.”
Additionally, he noticed a quality of the stainless-steel construction that can turn into a nightmare because of a seemingly clever design choice.
A Tesla Cybertruck at a Tesla store in San Jose, Calif., on Nov. 28.
While demonstrating the Cybertruck’s door handle-less design, Brownlee explained how the cool feature can cause an issue for owners down the line.
“I think a lot of people are going to open it down here on the stainless steel,” Brownlee said while gripping the side of the door. “You can see the fingerprints, […] because there’s no door handles, there’s not really a good way of telling someone how to get in. There’s going to be a lot of Cybertrucks floating around with lots of fingerprints around the place that people’s hands go to open the doors.”
Analysts have concerns
In an appearance on CNBC’s Last Call, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives and Deepwater’s Gene Munster talked about the Cybertruck’s effect on Tesla’s bottom line, where they collectively agreed that it has big potential, but will not move the needle for the company unless they ramp up production to fulfill their reservations and lower the price.
Ives said that the vehicle represented a “halo effect,” where the Cybertruck existing and creating a distinct category in a time where Detroit’s big three are taking a step back from electric vehicles.
Munster, however, said that at its current production level, Tesla (TSLA) – Get Free Report will probably lose $40,000 on each Cybertruck before they intensely scale up production.
Tesla’s missed promises
Elon Musk stands in front of the newly unveiled all-electric battery-powered Tesla’s Cybertruck at Tesla Design Center in Hawthorne, Calif., on Nov. 21, 2019.
FREDERIC J. BROWN/Getty Images
The concerns raised by the analysts are associated with some general disappointment particularly with some broken promises on key specifications made by Elon Musk and Tesla from the Cybertruck’s first introduction approximately four years ago.
Musk had previously said the Cybertruck would have a range of over 500 miles and a price tag nearing $70,000, two things that the actual vehicle doesn’t deliver on.
Cybertruck presentation was wildly lacking in details. Final specs well below promised in almost every category:
2019: 500+ miles of range for $69,900
2023: 320 miles of range for $99,990
2019: windows can withstand a steel ball (almost)
2023: windows can withstand a baseball pic.twitter.com/PLidvZtwZb
— Tom Randall (@tsrandall) November 30, 2023
Additionally, Brownlee said in a tweet that while he does understand that achieving 500 miles of range would mean “thousands of pounds of extra battery” affecting driving dynamics, he is not confident in seeing Tesla follow through on the promises of another key anticipated model.
Tesla Cybertruck is notably the first time that Tesla is straight up not delivering on some of the key specs they promised
Promised specs:
500+ mile range
$70,000
Delivered:
340 mile range
$100,000
Tesla (and others) have taken the stance that the thousands of pounds of extra…
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) November 30, 2023
