Wouldn't it be dreamier to have a bigger ramp of Model Y? It seems that it has not yet saturated the market.
I think it's the right time to add another model in an entirely new segment (Cybertruck) and for the Semi to jumpstart heavy trucking.
What I see is that the Model Y has a huge potential market, perhaps 10X the current market, but not at current ASP's. The Model Y has the highest margins of any current Tesla model so there is already plenty of room to expand the market by lowering prices, that's without any future cost savings due to manufacturing and volume efficiencies. And, as we saw in China very recently, demand for cars is highly sensitive to relatively small changes in price. So, Model Y production and sales can continue to grow profitably for years, limited only by availability of parts, raw materials, manufacturing space and people. The lower the price, the larger the market. The Model 3, with the Highland update, will likely fall into this same category, although at about half the total volumes.
On the other hand, the Cybertruck has over 2 million reservations (which will almost certainly grow larger even as 20%-50% of early reservations cancel) and potentially even higher margins. Since we don't have any good data of how much it's going to cost to build, or what the release prices will be, this is still unproven. But Munro seems to think the unique construction is brilliant, not only because it will make for a better truck, but also that it will have huge savings in the cost to build for reasons we have previously discussed in depth. It must be kept in mind that Munro has not priced out the various prices and raw materials, he's just making a seat-of-the-pants estimation.
Elon and team
have costed out the manufacture and think it's a go. I can see no indication they are doing this just to fulfill expectations, Elon has talked the truck up numerous times as potentially "one of our best products ever". Elon has added to expectations by adding four-wheel steering and a four-motor 350-mile version which will undoubtably have all kinds of tricks up its sleeve due to its ability to control every wheel electronically and independently, including steering angles front/back. I think it likely that Tesla will release the 4-motor version first with a higher price than the announced price of the tri-motor version of $69,900 (even with a smaller battery back). I think the 500-mile version will be released in mid/late 2024.
If the 4-motor version is the release version, that means that Cybertruck could prove to be profitable very early in its ramp and I think demand for the initial release will be so high that some people will be flipping them for $10-$20K profits, even if the release price is $89K without any options like FSD or off-road wheels. After selling 50 or 80 thousand 4-wheel models, probably by early 2024, production will transition to a mix including the most popular version, probably a 2-motor 4WD truck at a reasonably affordable price point that will allow sales volumes to grow with production for years to come with steadily increasing margins in the first couple of years.
If the economics of making the truck are as favorable as I'm hoping, and batteries are available at reasonable prices, I can see Tesla easily getting to 1 million Cybertrucks per year with higher margins than Model Y. Best of all, they will be displacing ICE trucks and large SUV's getting 15-22 mpg!
I think the new, smaller compact Tesla will be released without a lot of advance warning because Tesla knows demand will be off-the-charts (so they don't need to build any more anticipation than they already have). Margins will be lower than Model Y and Cybertruck margins but potential sales very high. All of this is dependent upon battery supply, so keep your eyes on 4680 production increases/progress! People worried about future demand for Tesla vehicles are just displaying their ignorance of what's happening in the automotive markets globally. It really is all about the batteries. Hopefully we get a bullish battery update during Q4 earnings call.
