At 4am on December 1st, Tesla held the official delivery ceremony of its Cybertruck at its Texas super factory in the United States. This officially claimed pure electric pickup truck, which can travel on any planet's surface, was finally unveiled after four years. At the delivery ceremony, the first batch of car owners also enjoyed the experience of Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk personally delivering.
According to Tesla's official website, the Cyber pickup truck comes in three versions: rear wheel drive, all wheel drive, and Cyber Beast (three motors), priced at $60990 (equivalent to RMB 440000), $79990 (equivalent to RMB 570000), and $99990 (equivalent to RMB 710000), respectively. It is expected to be delivered in 2024. Tesla China has launched a vehicle model page on its official website, but has not provided information such as booking channels and prices.
Surprisingly, after the press conference, Tesla's stock price did not rise but fell. The decline in the end of the day expanded to 3%, and ultimately closed down 1.66%, with a 2.02% drop after the market. Previously, industry insiders suggested that Tesla should cancel its Cyber pickup project because it is unlikely to achieve profitability.
200 million US dollars were recorded before the delivery of the new car
It is reported that Tesla's Cyber pickup made its debut on November 22, 2019, and it has been 4 years since then. According to third-party organizations, Tesla has received over 2 million booking orders worldwide during this period, with an overseas deposit of $100 (later increased to $250) and a Chinese market user deposit of 1000 RMB. According to this estimate, the Cyber pickup truck had already helped Tesla generate over $200 million in revenue before its official delivery.
In fact, Tesla's Cyber pickup truck, as an all electric pickup truck model, attracted global attention at the beginning of its release. Firstly, the appearance design of the Cyber pickup truck is highly futuristic, using a unique stainless steel shell material and a powerful electric power system, achieving "more practicality than trucks and faster than sports cars.".
In terms of configuration parameters, the new car adopts a stainless steel exoskeleton body, armored glass, and all terrain tires, which are sturdy and durable, and can adapt to various road conditions; With a traction force of 4990 kilograms, it can load 1.13 tons of cargo. In addition, the 0-100 km/h acceleration only takes 2.7 seconds, surpassing the Porsche 911 and reaching a top speed of 209 km/h.
In terms of handling, through wire controlled steering and rear wheel steering, it achieves sports car level handling and a turning radius better than most sedans; Using brand new alloy materials; Armored glass can withstand the impact of baseball or level 4 hail (hail with a diameter of 2.5-5cm) at a speed of 112 kilometers per hour; The ultra-low center of gravity is not easy to roll over.
However, due to its high positioning and design difficulty, the delivery of the Cyber pickup truck has been delayed several times. Sources close to Tesla have revealed to reporters that Musk's choice of avant-garde design and unconventional stainless steel construction has brought great technical challenges to the engineering team.
"In the past few months, the engineering team has been trying to replace lighter components or reduce the use of certain parts, and trying various other methods to reduce the weight of the Cyber pickup truck in order to achieve their battery pack range target. The person mentioned above stated that Tesla had originally planned to deliver the Cyber pickup truck in September this year, but due to the heavy stainless steel body provided by supplier Ottokump, the vehicle's range was affected, ultimately resulting in delivery delays.".
Cyber pickup trucks may not be able to boost Tesla's performance growth
Although Cyber Trucks is a sci-fi themed electric pickup truck launched by Tesla, with powerful power and excellent in car technology, it is highly sought after by end users. But the overly avant-garde and anti trend design and positioning also caused controversy for this model from its inception.
The reporter observed that the lowest selling price of this car is more than 50% higher than the price proposed by Musk a few years ago. When it comes to this "alternative" model, Musk once described the difficulty of mass production of the Cyber pickup truck as "digging its own pit" in the 2023 third quarter financial report, and said that increasing production would be extremely difficult, possibly taking at least 18 months.
From this perspective, the "high-precision and cutting-edge" product of the Cyber pickup truck is more like Musk's pursuit of self challenge in the pickup truck market, or it may be difficult to lead Tesla to achieve performance growth. It is widely believed in the industry that as the red ocean of the domestic car market intensifies, Tesla urgently needs a "phenomenal" model to stimulate the nerves of the market and consumers. After all, although the new Model 3 has already started delivery, it has not generated the expected market dominance.
The financial report shows that Tesla's total revenue in the third quarter was about 23.4 billion US dollars (approximately 171.2 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 9%, which is the slowest growth rate in more than three years; Net profit of approximately 1.9 billion US dollars (approximately 13.9 billion RMB); The market's most concerned gross profit margin has dropped to 17.9%, slightly lower than Wall Street's expected 18%.
Regarding this, Zhang Fan, a partner in the advanced manufacturing and transportation industry of Deji, said that the Cyber pickup truck is more like an exploration tool and outdoor toy than a pickup truck. In the North American market, pickup truck models are very popular, but it is difficult to mass produce and increase production, and the uphill period will be very long.
Zhang Fan believes, "On the domestic side, although China's policy on pickup trucks is gradually easing, currently only some urban areas have been lifted from traffic bans and there may still be restrictions for a certain period of time. Although the domestic market for Cyber pickup trucks seems to be very hot, considering the domestic policy on using pickup truck models, the sales prospects may not be too optimistic."