Tesla plans to begin delivering its long-awaited and delayed Cybertruck pickup truck to customers on Thursday, entering one of the auto industry’s most lucrative but competitive segments.
With its stainless steel body and sharp angles, the Cybertruck differentiates itself from the pickup trucks from Ford Motor, General Motors and Ram that dominate the market. It’s Tesla’s first all-new passenger vehicle in more than three years, but it comes long after other automakers began selling battery-powered pickup trucks.
That has analysts wondering who will buy the Cybertruck. Will it steal customers from traditional automakers, attract a different audience, or become an expensive failure? Tesla has said hundreds of thousands of people have made $100 refundable deposits on Cybertrucks. But there’s no guarantee those bookings will translate into sales.
“The question arises: what kind of customer is Tesla looking for?” said Ben Rose, president of Battle Road Research, a firm that tracks technology and electric vehicle companies, who expects Tesla shares to outperform the market. “It looks like something taken down from the lunar module to collect rocks on the moon.”
First shown publicly in 2019, the vehicle has suffered production issues stemming from its odd design and choice of stainless steel instead of the lighter steel or aluminum typically used in cars and trucks. Sales have been delayed by more than two years, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has warned investors that the company may not be able to produce the truck in large quantities until 2025.
“There will be enormous challenges in reaching production volume with the Cybertruck and making the Cybertruck cash flow positive,” Musk said in October. He sounded more optimistic on Wednesday, saying during an appearance at the New York Times DealBook Summit: “It will be by far the biggest product launch of anything in the world this year.”
The stakes are also high for traditional automakers. Americans buy 2.5 million trucks a year, and those sales are a major source of profits for Ford, GM and Stellantis, which owns Ram, Jeep and Chrysler. In the United States, pickup trucks are often sold as luxury vehicles. Wealthy Europeans or Asians tend to buy sedans and sport utility vehicles from Mercedes-Benz, BMW or Audi. Many wealthy Americans buy Ford F-150s with 18-speaker sound systems and heated steering wheels.
Tesla is expected to reveal pricing for the Cybertruck at an event Thursday afternoon in Austin, Texas, where the vehicle is built. Full-featured, all-wheel drive versions are expected to cost around $80,000 or more, with additional trim and technology. Tesla is expected to eventually offer a two-wheel drive version for around $50,000, but it could be several years before more affordable models arrive.
Early buyers are likely to be wealthy collectors and techies, Rose said. The Cybertruck is unlikely to have as much appeal to corporate fleet operators as utility or construction companies. The model is also unlikely to be affordable or practical for landscapers, drywall installers, and other small business owners.
This is a relief for traditional automakers. About a fifth of the F-150s Ford sells go to business or government customers. Ford’s Pro division, which focuses on commercial customers, makes much more money as a percentage of its sales than the division that sells gasoline vehicles to individuals. (The division that sells electric vehicles to consumers lost money.)
Some companies purchase vans without a cargo bed and instead install specialized beds or beds that fit their needs. That will be impossible with the Cybertruck’s one-piece body.
Even when companies buy trucks with standard beds, they often add accessories like tool boxes or ladder racks that don’t fit in the Cybertruck. (Most trucks from other manufacturers look and function very similar, so they can accommodate these add-ons.)
So far, sales of electric trucks and other vehicles to commercial customers have been modest. But Ford sees potential to dominate a fast-growing market where there won’t be much competition from Tesla. Ford’s E-Transit electric vans have 50 percent of its market in the United States and Europe, Ted Cannis, chief executive of Ford Pro, said in an interview. The electric version of the F-150, known as the Lightning, has almost no has competition among commercial customers, he added.
Ford can earn additional revenue from business and government customers by selling them services such as software that tracks the locations of its employees and creates efficient routes. Ford will also help customers install charging stations for fleets of pickup trucks and vans. “We have to make the transition as easy as possible,” Cannis said.
There has been no indication that Tesla plans to offer similar services.
Many aspects of the Cybertruck have been a mystery. Ahead of Thursday’s event, Tesla investors and fans were awaiting news on whether, for example, the Cybertruck would have power tool sockets or could provide backup power to homes, a feature available on the F-150 Lightning.
Electric trucks have been available since late 2021, when Rivian, a young electric vehicle company, began selling the R1T. Ford began selling the F-150 Lightning in 2022. GM began selling an electric version of its Silverado pickup truck in limited quantities this year.
So far, buyer response has been mixed. Electric trucks accounted for just 3 percent of the EV market in the first nine months of 2023. And just 2 percent of all pickup trucks sold in the United States were electric, according to estimates from Kelley Blue Book and Battle Road.
But sales are growing faster than the overall auto market, even if the pace has slowed recently. Sales of the F-150 Lightning in the first nine months of the year grew 40 percent to more than 12,000 vehicles, according to Kelley Blue Book. Rivian truck sales grew 28 percent to more than 14,000 vehicles.
