Elon Musk said on Wednesday that Tesla’s Cybertruck will finally hit the road sometime this summer.
Speaking during an earnings call with investors, the Tesla chief said a delivery event for the funky-looking electric pickup will take place in the third quarter of this year.
However, Musk added that large-scale production is unlikely to get underway until 2024.
“It takes time to get the manufacturing line going, and this is really a very radical product,” Tesla’s boss said during the call. “It’s not made in the way that other cars are made.”
He added that pricing and specifications for the Cybertruck will be revealed nearer to the launch date, or possibly at the delivery event. Pricing details were removed from Tesla’s website toward the end of 2021, but at the time, it showed three variants costing between $39,900 and $69,900, depending on features such as the number of electric motors, towing capacity, and range. It’s widely believed that the final price will be higher.
Earlier this month, Musk revealed that he had spent several hours on the Cybertruck production line at Giga Texas, tweeting, “Gonna be awesome … feels like the future.”
However, in 2021, he also admitted that due to its extraordinary design, there was “some chance that Cybertruck will flop.”
The long wait
Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck in 2019. It originally aimed for volume production of the electric vehicle by the end of 2021, but that date slipped to early 2022 before slipping again. It’s not the first delay Tesla has experienced with vehicle launches, as its electric Semi truck, which finally hit the road in December, also arrived much later than expected.
Reports suggest the automaker has received more than 1 million preorders for the futuristic-looking Cybertruck. Customers are asked to pay a refundable $100 deposit and the company is still taking orders via its website.
