Tesla’s Cybertruck set for summer delivery event

By Trevor Mogg April 19, 2023

Tesla's Cybertruck. — Tesla

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.

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Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

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GMC poured all of its truck-making expertise into the Sierra EV pickup

A 2024 GMC Sierra EV towing an Airstream trailer.

The Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks are twins, and that will continue to be the case when they go electric.
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Design
The Sierra EV updates the design language of the internal-combustion GMC Sierra for the electric age. A big grille is no longer needed for cooling, but it’s still an important styling element that designers didn’t want to break away from, Sharon Gauci, GMC executive director of global design, explained to Digital Trends and other media in an online briefing ahead of the truck’s reveal. The grille shape is now outlined in lights, with an illuminated GMC logo.
Like the Hummer EV and Silverado EV, the Sierra EV uses GM’s Ultium modular battery architecture which, among other things, means the battery pack is an integral part of the structure. So unlike most other trucks — including the rival Ford F-150 Lightning — the Sierra EV doesn’t have a separate frame. The cab and bed are one piece as well, all of which helps increase structural rigidity.
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Because it’s pitched as a premium vehicle, the Sierra EV gets upscale interior materials like open-pore wood trim and stainless steel speaker grilles for its Bose audio system. But the design itself, with a freestanding portrait touchscreen and rectangular instrument cluster, looks suspiciously similar to the Ford Mustang Mach-E cabin. The touchscreen even has the same big volume knob as the Ford. We hope GMC’s lawyers are ready.