Jason with an entertaining review of the Cybertruck:
I’ll have to wait for a tear down but as an automotive designer who has some insight into the process of creating an automobile:
While I do agree that automotive media is highly problematic for a number of systemic reasons, the best ones have more of a 30K POV of automotive history.
While I see the appeal of chasing raw data numbers—and Tesla itself has made itself an easy target here with the drag races marketing campaigns-within this review there is a subtle sense of refinement that has been lacking from Teslas products overall. For the European/Japanese loyal buyers who want a different approach (and while extremely polarizing, most will agree this IS very different vs the establishment) this might be a very key element moving forward to draw and retain buyers.
Hyperbole aside, there was a another key point Jason mentioned-like other Teslas, the Cybertruck seems to FEEL like the future-and while I love the Silverado EV (we spent over 200 miles in one, a very lovely product) and Rivians flagships (a bunch of then FCA talent jumped ship to work on the RTs-squint and you can see Jeep DNA in the rear profile-beautiful work) they are very representative of ‘Legacy think.’
While this obviously has appeal for a lot of potential buyers, the Cybertruck is absolutely going to speak to the G Wagon/Urus buyer, and not everyone one of those can make the stretch to those. I’m not sure if a few miles of more range is going to sway that group of buyers.
Lastly, historically volume provided, Tesla has historically lowered its prices as it’s produced more products. Tesla marketing-er, product specialist fed Jason a line about the CTs motors being cheaper to produce and less wiring used throughout the design.
This is a signal that the company is projecting that it can and will lower cost as it ramps up, just as it did with the Model 3/Y, and S/X imho. The process within the company-especially the way engineering and manufacturing are aligned internally-almost guarantees it.