Elon Musk's Cybertruck is an inside joke
When Tesla CEO Elon Musk introduced the gleaming hunk of stainless steel that is the Cybertruck, I thought he was joking.
The truck is real in the sense that there is at least one functioning version. I rode in it for three minutes last week at the Tesla Design Studio in Southern California. It had a spacious interior with enough seating for six, a massive touchscreen, and funky steering wheel. You can order one with a $100 refundable deposit, even though it's not scheduled to arrive until 2021. But it's still a joke. More specifically, an inside joke.
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This is a pickup truck for Tesla stans. From the cyberpunk font to the Blade Runner-inspired design to the extreme unveiling with sledgehammers and metal balls shattering glass windows, the average consumer is probably overwhelmed and a bit confused.
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Everyone is caught up on how ugly the vehicle is, but that's beside the point. It's playing into long-running obsessions and themes that have inspired Musk for years. Back in March, Musk included a Blade Runner clip at the Model Y event. He's tweeted about the movie.
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Cybertruck is how we survive the bleak, dystopian future we've queued up with our gas-guzzling, fossil-fuel burning ways. He timed the Cybertruck reveal to match up to Blade Runner's setting: Los Angeles, November 2019.
Another nod to his obsession with the looming apocalypse: his Boring Company's Not-a-Flamethrower from 2018.
Regular pick-up truck owners aren't as interested in dystopian sci-fi, or at least enough to switch over to something so polarizing, different, and showy.
"Cybertruck’s buyers will not be typical pickup owners," Joe Wiesenfelder, executive editor at Cars.com, wrote in an email to Mashable. "Pickup owners are among the most brand-loyal on the market, and any newcomer has difficulty breaking through. It’s hard to imagine traditional work-truck operators flocking to Tesla."
As the Associated Press reported last week, the Cybertruck is more likely to cut into Tesla sales than into pickup truck sales. And there is no guarantee it'll entice Tesla fans who love the Model 3. Instead, it could be a novelty, limited-edition item.
The cheapest version, which has one motor and a 250-mile range for $39,900, isn't even supposed to start production for another two years. For $69,900, you can get a Cybertruck with three motors and 500 miles of range. That version is three years out.
Cybertruck is more likely to cut into Tesla sales than into pickup truck sales.
Musk hasn't been shy about promoting his "rivals." He wants competing pickups from Rivian and Ford, which is working on an electric F-150, to succeed.
When Ford released its first electric SUV, the Mach-E, Musk gushed congratulations on Twitter, and said it would "encourage other carmakers to go electric too."
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The Rivian RT1 electric pickup is supposed to arrive by the end of next year. If Tesla wanted to make a real pickup truck competitor, it would have. After all, it made a real electric sedan competitor, the Model 3. Even YouTuber Simone Giertz's "Truckla" design is more feasible as an everyday work vehicle than the Cybertruck.
Musk may have boasted on Twitter (and on stage) about his truck's capabilities. But egging on Ford in a Twitter spat does more than provide Tesla with free publicity. It also pushes big auto companies to more rapidly and enthusiastically embrace electric vehicles.
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Tesla shareholders want Tesla to make money, but Musk has said again and again his goal is to electrify the automotive world. If he can get the stubborn, loyal pickup truck community to go EV, mission mostly accomplished.
"Tesla is marketing to a luxury truck consumer which is a profitable but very small market. The average truck consumer does not prioritize EV yet," Alyssa Altman, transportation lead at tech consultancy firm Publicis Sapient, wrote in an email. But that's about to change.
Musk now has people talking about electric pickup trucks in a big way. Social media analytics firm Sprout Social found more than 600,000 tweets mentioning Cybertruck since Friday morning.
The Cybertruck hasn't even been out a week, so there's still a chance this is all one big joke. But it certainly started a conversation that needed to happen.
Topics Elon Musk
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
