Tesla's Cybertruck is outselling almost every other EV in the US (opens in new tab)

The thing is, the people most likely to complain that the Cybertruck is a bad vehicle are the people who are informed about it. The wider public doesn't know about things like the tonneau cover leaking, wheel bearings failing, the suspension being stuck down and causing tire rub, the aerodynamic wheel covers that were causing tire failures because they were puncturing the sidewalls, the upper control arms that bend like an empty aluminum can, the door edges that will cut your finger off, the tailgate that will also cut your finger off, the fact that it's got even worse sight lines than the Hummer H1, or that the bed effectively loses twenty percent of it's space because of the backwards angled bulkhead where the bed and the cab meet.

Someone who is an enthusiast will most likely know about those things because they were widely reported in the automotive news sphere, and thus they will have a much higher chance of being against the Cybertruck. The wider public doesn't know, and so the novelty factor draws them in.

For a number of years, a friend of mine has had a '99 Plymouth Prowler. If I were to base car popularity based solely on people coming up to ask about the car, his would win hands down and you'd assume (naturally) that Plymouth just couldn't manufacture enough to keep up with demand. There's a huge difference between attention-grabbing looks to a vehicle that will have people stop you and ask about it and what people will actually buy when it comes time to buy their next car. It's tempting to point to its position as #3 overall as an overwhelming success but the EV market is comparatively small still so I'm not sure it's useful to put much stock in it.

In terms of the negativity, I'd say that unlike other cars of similar design (like the Aztek) -- a way higher percentage of the panning I see online is about it not living up to its promised capabilities. There's loads of videos of Cybertrucks needing to be towed out of bad spots by other trucks, problems even when it isn't stuck because of how little its frame flexes, the additional torque wearing away tread on the tires much faster, etc. Some of those things can be engineered around and I'm sure Tesla engineers are working on it.

I'd hazard a guess that the market share the Cybertruck is taking isn't any existing trucks but rather more "luxury-class" SUVs like Mercedes, Land Rover, and BMW.

Idk. I’d imagine it has more to do with the preorders and how they can stuff shipments.

I got to drive one… it’s an objectively terrible car. I would imagine that as the look gets let’s novel that attention will wane quickly. When they get the inevitable prominent pedestrian collision on video, it has Pinto potential.

It’s weird because the last “new” Tesla was the Model Y I think, and that is an incredibly well thought out car — probably the 2020s equivalent of the 1980s Taurus or Camry.

I actually saw one in person for the first time a couple days ago. I had a great laugh at the owner's expense. He could better serve his desperate need for attention at a fraction of the price by hosting a block party or driving a 70s F150 or similar (aka an actual truck). Unlike many folks who think these things are trash I'm delighted they're on the market. Characterless voids trying to trowel over their emptiness with expensive consumer goods should absolutely be able to advertise loudly as a warning to the rest of us. Imagine what would have been possible if they'd spent that money on a combination of therapy and developing actual interests.

"Yet when I drove a cybertruck, the number of onlookers who approached me inquiring about the car with excitement is unmatched with even a Lamborghini that I once rented".

Your sampling method is flawed. Only Cybertruck fans are approaching you. Most people aren't going to come up and tell you they think your car is ugly.

I think the truck is like dating an exciting but shallow person who doesn't care about you.

The truck is extremely fast, with excellent steering, suspension and lots of other groundbreaking technology.

But it is basically user-hostile. No dashboard, no stalks for turn signals or gear selection, and everything is on the central touchscreen. And that is super cluttered and impossible to do important things without looking away from your driving and jabbing at a moving touch point.

It makes you a worse driver, and you're spending 100k.

Honestly, give it a dashboard. Add stalks for turn signals, wiper, headlight, gear selection. Give it a few dedicated buttons for things you need to reach by touch (defrost, mute/volume, internal/external lights) and lots of animosity would go away. Make it an option for $5k! people will pay.

EDIT: they are learning. The wrapped black ones don't look terrible.

People are much more likely to approach you to say something positive than to say something negative.

There’s almost no precedent for a “hit” vehicle at that price point. Toyota stopped selling real Landcruisers in the US because Americans won’t pay that much for something with a Toyota Badge (hence the current real Landcruiser is sold as a Lexus in very low volume).

Tesla are claiming a hit after making people wait 5 years for a vehicle they couldn’t see and then shipping preorders. The preorders have been massively less than they claimed and now the vehicle is with people it is being shown to be of low quality and low capability. Unable to manage tasks Subarus and much cheaper vehicles can.

The proof of its success will be in the coming year. Now buyers are walking in to buy a real vehicle at a real price. The current owners bought a paper spec sheet at a fantasy price and are a self selecting group happy to pay 2-3x over what they were promised.

Years ago I got a rental that was some new hideous looking 4-door Fiat model. Maybe a 500L or something. They were taking off the plastic wrap when I got it.

It was a week of beating off people approaching me and asking about it. It looked weird, I thought people wanted to beat me up but they were genuinely curious about it.

That some weird truck with a formerly 3 year waiting list is at the top of the charts a couple months into shipping should be surprising? Wait a year. Nobody is looking at the 500L now.

People used to do the same thing to me after we bought one of the first Nissan Leafs. So much that a friend expressed displeasure with going with me to pick up food because he knew we would very likely be delayed by someone asking about the car.

So I don’t think it’s much of a measuring stick.

If you drive the weenermobile you'll get a similar reaction, but it doesn't mean people want to buy it. It's an oddity, a curiosity they're excited to see in person.

> impractical any actual truck work.

Some pickup truck work is high mileage, but a surprising amount of it is low mileage. It varies a lot, there are lots of trucks that do less than 100 miles a day.

Work trucks are also usually much more predictable than consumer vehicles. Most of them do the same thing every day. The predictability should make buying an EV easier.

> MKBHD got the ratio’s right in his review, 75% of all approaching population are excited about the car and when asked to guess its price, they all wildly overestimate it, guessing close to a million than a 100k

This has to be hyperbole. There are many in the middle class areas I spend a lot of time in, and even $100K cars are a rarity here. No-one is thinking "oh, wow, sure are a lot of people who just bought million dollar cars, here where the median home price is $500-600K!"

The only good thing about the CyberTruck is the steer-by-wire system. It makes steering suck in all other cars. But every other aspect of the thing is a complete failure. Selling a car with such terrible terrible visibility should not be legal.

Nothing weird about it. It's panned as a vehicle to drive. Not panned as a way to attract attention, haven't seen anyone claiming it's bad at that.

Social media isn’t reality

I can understand being curious about it since it is one of the most unusual looking vehicles. But, I mean, I saw one on Main Street recently and it was ugly as heck. I'd be curious about it too, without ever having any wish to buy one.

There is an anti-musk campaign on-going and anything Musk does is being criticized. That being said, from my Youtube observations it seems that the biggest issue is the build quality. They clearly rushed this through.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see this thing in small alleys and especially with the crazy speeds you can accelerate with. But it's definitively an interesting model.

I also fell for this online bashing of the cybertruck. And since I had a model S but skipped the model 3 for a taycan and was aware of the poor quality of the model 3, I thought it made sense.

However if people are buying the cybertruck despite all its faults, then I'm glad to be proven wrong.

James May (of Top Gear fame) recently tried the Cybertruck and didn't immediately hate it.

Yeah because street folks impressed by a hunk of steel and thinking it cost a million dollars aren't in a bubble aha

There are a lot of terrible cars that impress non car people

I feel Tesla is a US bubble. Despite all the disproportionate media this brand and it’s CEO gets, in my country I haven’t even seen one in the street yet, but I see EV Volvo, Renault, Fiat, BYD, GWM and others daily.

(Caveat: I am not a car guy at all, never owned one)

In the US, most trucks sold do very little hauling, towing, or off-reading or anything else that might justify the giant form factor.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...

And yet, trucks and SUVs are the best-selling cars in the US, and have been for a long time. There is a weird loophole for fuel efficiency in mileage standards for large vehicles, but obviously that doesn’t apply to the Cybertruck. There is definitely some psychological appeal to having a very dominant-looking vehicle.

So just as a business move, the Cybertruck makes sense. But there’s more overlap with Musk’s politics than you might think.

I read a book a long time ago by this very weird product marketer Clotaire Rapaille, who, several decades ago, was trying to convince executives to put a gun mount on an SUV. His argument was his research showed that the people who loved big cars saw the world as dangerous, and had fantasies of cutting through the hordes with a powerful vehicle. Rapaille’s methods are somewhere between the usual consumer panel interviews and guided meditation, so it’s hardly scientific, maybe more like poetry, but I found it compelling.

Musk actually tried to demonstrate the Cybertruck’s resistance to guns and sledgehammers. Its actual durability is, I gather, more debatable, but he was definitely trying to reach people’s darkest fears and impulses.

novelty != taste; that vehicle sets new records for ugly..

lol. Judging a vehicle because people talked to you. Sad. You look like a chode driving that thing.

I feel this is also selection bias. People approaching owners in public are unlikely to be aware of what an engineering disaster the thing is, what with all the issues with quality control, slow delivery, and very slow repairs/maintenance from Tesla, or the funnier stories where owners have had their trucks brick entirely due to getting the thing washed, whereas in the comment sections you're referencing, those topics are usually the topic of conversation. And, I mean, even if the people approaching owners do know about that stuff... I dunno, I find it hard to picture myself walking up to a complete stranger and shit-talking their new toy to their face. And not just because I'm a nice person, but because too many people in this country are emotionally unstable and armed, and as funny as I think Cybertrucks and their owners are, I'm not prepared to get killed for a joke.

And to put this even further: most people even in America are not "car people" and therefore don't know shit about cars, where they come from, what goes into them, etc. My parents are great examples of this. They've owned something like 4 of the 10 worst cars of the new millennium list put out by Forbes, but like, an awful car in 2024 is still generally fine for an undemanding casual user. Sure, people buy tons of trucks here, but the vast majority of them aren't used for anything more strenuous than hauling a dozen bags of fertilizer, and my Corvette can handle that. A Cybertruck is a terrible truck, but most people don't do truck shit with the trucks they buy, and it's a perfectly middle-of-the-road SUEV. I think it's a bad option if that's what you're after, chiefly because you're gonna spend a LOT of money on tires you don't really need to, and the panels aren't aligned right, and if anything goes wrong with it you're liable to spend months playing vehicular ping-pong with your Tesla dealership, and it's (IMO) ugly as sin... but you do you. Assuming it doesn't have some kind of catastrophic failure that an unfortunate number do, you'll probably have a fine experience.

The videos of it struggling to move in snow and "bravely" fording a creek of 5 inch deep water are funny as hell to see, because it's shocking what Cybertruck owners think "hard going" in a truck is. They'd probably lose their minds seeing some of what I've seen modified trucks crawl up, through, and across in the course of off-road competition if they think driving through a fast stream makes the Cybertruck a feat of engineering, but again, most people who buy these things aren't driving through a blizzard at 90mph to get medicine to the good children of the village so they live to see Santa come Christmas morning. They're going across town to the Good Denny's, or to the local mall for shopping, or to their kids soccer game. And on that journey, a Cybertruck and virtually any vehicle you can buy new right now, will suffice. Just don't get it wet.

> it’s low range and really low range when towing make it impractical for any actual truck work.

So it's a bit crap then?

They are not legal in the EU, but a loophole is being exploited to import them.

I'd appreciate EU citizens writing to their MEPs about this.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/oct/08/tesla-cyb...

That’s strange since the Cybertruck doesn’t meet European regulations (at the very least UN-R26) due to pedestrian safety. Not sure if there is a workaround if someone imports it as their personal vehicle though.

Interesting about height and fatality risk: (from the article)

> a 10cm increase in the front-end height of a vehicle led to a 22% increase in pedestrian fatality risk, most strongly affecting the survival chances of women, children, and older people.

Kid killer cars

Even if it were allowed on the roads of France, with its 4 tons, you would have to pass the specific driver license C1 [1], because over the 3.5 tons limit of a classical driver license B. More than that, the C1 must be renewed every 5 years at least.

[1] : https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F31121

We will fight for your freedom to prevent sharp corners on roads.

It's basically the same size as an F-150. It has a crumple zone although it probabl only activates for hard car collisions. I've seen no evidence that it is significantly worse for pedestrian safety than an F-150. Which is not good at all, but it is still a bit pretentious to paint it as a horribly dangerous car when there is no evidence that it is worse than one of the most common cars in the US.

I honestly can’t believe they’re street legal anywhere given that the steel panels essentially turn them into a knife driving down the highway.

Why do you hope they never get allowed in France?

In that case, I can't imagine how you feel about delivery trucks.

Thank you for the relevant snippet. Here's how Tesla(not just cybertruck) compares globally. https://www.statista.com/statistics/541390/global-sales-of-p...

"BYD was ranked as the best-selling electric vehicle manufacturer worldwide after selling over three million units in 2023 after overtaking Tesla as the best-selling electric vehicle manufacturer in the previous year. BYD's sales volume translates into a market share of around 22 percent. Tesla and the Volkswagen Group were among the runners-up. "

> we need more mainstream vehicles challenging the boring design "norms"

I'd argue that we need to start treating cars like the utilitarian objects they are and stop associating our personalities with them.

I find Kia/ Hyundai designs more pleasing and “out of the box” than most other automakers. Of course they have some failures like the Ioniq 6 sedan, the thing looks like the hate child between a 911 and an MB C300.

I’m genuinely curious, on a 4-month old vehicle, why weren’t the three specific repairs and costs you list be covered under warranty?

> She had about two or three tires slashed or had the air nozzle cut off and sentry mode didn't catch anything except the back of the persons head.

Who is doing this? Anti-Musk people? Anti-EV people? I’m not from the US so I’m not familiar with the politics.

If your state has "lemon laws", maybe you can get some help. https://www.atg.wa.gov/general-lemon-law TLDR: recourse when mfg sells a defective, unsafe, or both, vehicle.

Not that this helps you...

IMHO, current CyberTruck is in the alpha testing phase. It has multiple disruptive innovations. Tesla wisely chose the relatively low volume CyberTruck to mitigate risk.

I'm concerned (but not surprised) Tesla is aggressively ramping up production.

Esthetics aside, CyberTruck has so many exciting, long overdue technology innovations. Better gigacasting, modular etherloop (replacing CAN bus), switch to 48v, drive by wire, no rear view mirror, etc.

(I think the stainless steel exterior will prove to be a mistake. Mostly for safety reasons.)

> I mean most cars you get a good five years out them anyway right?

Uhh no? You should absolutely expect a good vehicle, hell most vehicles, to exceed 10 years without serious failures. Many vehicles come with 7 year warranties on manufacturing defects… It sounds like you need to take better care of your vehicles or buy better vehicles. I did notice that you said she drives 200 miles a day and that will certainly contribute but if you take care of it, most cars would probably do that for 10 years assuming it’s mostly cruising. Either way that statement of 5 years is nuts. I bought a 5 year old car with 80,000km on it and it was in damn near new condition!

I’ve owned 6 vehicles, including one motorcycle, none of them from brand new mind you, and all of them were still reliable after their 10th year lol. Currently I have a 5 year old car which you can’t tell apart from the brand new 2024 models because it has no wear and the model hasn’t had a face lift, and I have a 35 year old ute (truck)… 5 years is nothing. I think the average age of cars on the road would be older than 5 years

early production models of any tesla are generally garbage quality, remember the constant issues with S/X panel gaps, model 3 panel gaps, home depot plastic in the model y, etc.

Someone commented on some forum:

"People buying a car with a lifespan of their smartphone batteries is beyond me."

Why is she driving two hundred miles a day for work for?

Hah, a unwieldly, unreliable, pedestrian-killing-homing-missile is comparable to those Chinese "hoverboards".. I like it.

EV's have been horrifically ugly and/or boring for decades, its fine for the Cybertruck to buck that trend.

To move past this barricade you must show your identification card. And a dank meme.

Everybody will wear Ed Hardy again?

Very well said.

The biggest failing of the i3, in my opinion, is that it looked stupid. It was cheap and "dorky" looking for no obvious reason. There was nothing that stopped BMW from making it look like any of their other models but they chose to make it weird and different in a way that surely hurt its sales. A real shame, honestly.

I really wish they would have continued to make the i3 and reduce the cost. It was perfect for a lot of people but the price was just too high.

personally, I'm more happy that 1000 hp is cheaper than ever before with the model s plaid

It may literally be too sharp for EU standards...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/oct/08/tesla-cyb...

That's not in civilized countries (hum, Europe)

It's impressive. But to be fair, a totally novel item should be expected to have pent up demand that smooths out over time. The F-150 was introduced 49 years ago so demand has smoothed already.

GM has Silverado and Sierra EV trucks on the same platform as the Hummer.

I thought the Bolt had a good reputation. What's wrong with them?

New cars have always been expensive. The average car is 12 years old in the US, not many EVs were available in 2012, but a lot of used cars are older than that. Give it time and EVs will drop in price. Though with charging standards changing it will be a while just because some cars will not be chargeable.

I was at a park. Ct pulled up to a stop sign. Kid playing drops their toy, runs into the field toward the truck, and says in awe "Cybertruuuuuck!".

People buy them as big toys.

PNW here, I see a Rivian (or multiple) every time I go out -- only very rarely a Cybertruck.

Don't know which part of the country is buying the cybertrucks but I don't think it's here.

Rivian now has dedicated charging stations now out in wilderness-type places (i.e., at the entrance to national parks).

Sure, I'm in the Bay Area too. I see Rivians daily. Had an F-150 lightning pull up next to me yesterday. Every once in a while I'll see a Luicd whatever. Can't remember the last time I've seen a Cybertruck (on the road or broken down). In the past week I've seen a couple Hummer EVs. Hell I've seen more running Vinfasts than running Cybertrucks.

It sells for $100k. Bet all $100k cars move volume

same thing was said about model 3 and model y. won’t happen.

Literally every cybertruck I see has been fully wrapped with some business logo on it. I’m not sure I’ve yet seem one that wasn’t bought as a tax write off.

How is buying a company vehicle a "tax loophole"?

I think it is trendy: Tucker Carlson has been promoting this truck on his YouTube channel in at least two 1 hour videos.

All those vehicles have been selling for much longer (and the CT does not outsell the Y). The CT is the third-best selling vehicle for a single quarter, has only been on the market for a year, and production was pretty low for the first few months. The Mach-e has been on the market for over four years.

Does the concept of time exists?

I believe the guys that secretely want a F150 and remove the catalysator are the target demographic.

Musks resent policial turns fits the Cybertruck image too.

Tesla somehow made a vehicle that only looks its best when you put an aftermarket wrap/paintjob on it. It's almost impressive when you think about it.

All of these things are by design. Musk’s strategy is to be in the news and for the product to be him.

He must have fired his PR team and gave up on the visionary genius schtick. Many people will hate that he’s revealed his true self to the world and it isn’t pretty.

But the car sucks too.

Have you actually driven one? The only thing I use the touch screen for on a near daily basis is the defroster in the winter and that is before I start driving. Everything else I need regularly does have physical controls, e.g. wipers and blower speed.

I do have a model that still has the stalks though, haven’t driven the stalkless type enough to comment.

> But like...also, I just won't buy one. The fact that the car isn't my ideal one does not require me to despise it, or really care about it at all. There are a lot of cars that I don't like for one reason or another.

Normally I'd agree with you, but driving a car brings with it with pretty extreme externalities - it's not the people driving these behemoths that I'm worried about, it's everyone else. Distracting touchscreens, an erratic self-driving AI, and a car made of sharp points. Doesn't bode well.

You can get insurance for anything if you pay enough.

Every single Cybertruck on the road has insurance. You cannot take delivery without insurance.

State Farm charges me marginally more for my CT than they do for my Model Y.

Was it the Aztek that had really rabid fans? It was one of those boxy ones.

Never could figure out if they actually had really good reasons for it or were just trying to justify having bought an Aztek.

I don't think "percent of EV sales" is a meaningful metric. We should want more EV brands! Tesla allows others to use their patents and chargers specifically because they want more EV brands to exist as well!

Percent of total auto sales is a far better metric.

This appears to be an alternate article, rather than an alternate headline for this one.

> This to me implies that EVs have peaked

That might be true, if the #2 selling car, and the #1 selling car were not also EVs.

The Model Y is currently the second best selling vehicle of all kinds, and it very likely is about to overtake the F-150 as the most-selling vehicle, the first time the F-150 has been dethroned in 46 straight years.

The sales numbers are saying we have not reached peak EV.

Given you can cancel your preorder without losing any money, one would presume that the majority of pre orderers were happy with the results.