The promised range by Musk was 500 miles. That was what people signed up for. Then it was revised down to the actual range. There is an optional battery that takes up a lot of the tray space,
Tesla Cybertruck
Tesla CEO Elon Musk's ideas for a pickup truck were first stated publicly in 2012, envisioning a "Tesla supertruck with crazy torque, dynamic air suspension, and corners like it's on rails." In a 2014 interview with CNN, Musk stated that the Tesla pickup would be the equivalent of a Ford F-150...
2019 concept
The concept Cybertruck was unveiled in Los Angeles in November 2019—the same month, year, and location that the movie Blade Runner was set...
Reservations
Beginning in November 2019, Tesla accepted Cybertruck reservations with a refundable US$100 deposit. On November 23, 2019, Musk tweeted that Tesla had received 146,000 reservations in the first 1.5 days after the unveiling. Musk updated the number of preorders to 250,000 on November 26.
In October 2021, Tesla removed the Cybertruck's pricing and specifications from its website without explanation while still accepting deposits. An updated prototype was spotted undergoing testing in December 2021. The newer prototype could be distinguished from the 2019 concept vehicle by the presence of a large windshield wiper and the omission of the truck's front light bar.
At the 2022 annual shareholders meeting, in response to a question, Elon Musk stated that final specifications and pricing would be materially different from those unveiled on the concept vehicle in 2019.
By the end of November 2023, there were approximately 2 million reservations
Concept vehicles generally don't make it into production unchanged, if at at all (most never get past the concept stage), so it's not surprising that the specifications changed as development continued. People were still making reservations well after the specs were firmed up, and anyone who wasn't happy could pull out at any time.
I don't know why the range was revised downwards, but I suspect it had to do with battery technology not advancing as much as was hoped. The use of 4680 cells may be one factor. When Tesla announced the capacity improvement and cost reduction these cells would bring I was skeptical, especially as they were intending to use a new 'dry' coating technique that looked technically challenging. Nevertheless I'm sure the engineers thought they could do it. This wouldn't be the first time that a battery manufacturer had 'optimistic' goals, nor will it be the last. In fact it's quite normal in the industry.
Another interesting fact is that the Cybertruck's battery box is not completely full (widely reported as being 'half-empty' though this doesn't appear to be true). It looks to me like they could easily have put in enough extra cells to boost the range by 50% (340 to 500 miles) but there may be technical or other reasons (cost, cell production rate?) why they didn't do it.
Point is that this is just the 'foundation' series, which will almost certainly be revised for later mainstream production models. Also the actual range, while less than the originally planned 500 miles, is still greater than the Ford F-150 Lightning which Musk was aiming to match.
Tesla could use higher capacity batteries in the Cybertruck, but that would probably mean buying them from China which is very problematic in the US right now. It will be interesting to see what happens when they start selling Cybertrucks in China. I'm betting the range and price will be much closer to the original concept.
Of course none of this will satisfy the haters, because they don't
want to be satisfied. They are only looking for ammunition to attack Musk, Tesla and EVs in general with, and will inflate, distort, or outright lie about anything related to those topics - and when that's not enough they make stuff up.
It's amusing to watch purportedly intelligent 'skeptics' lose their **** over Musk and Tesla, but it doesn't bother me. I'm only interested in the technology and what Tesla is doing to push the boundaries. So far they have done pretty well, but in any game like this there's always a chance they will push it too far and crash and burn. Some of the things they are doing might not seem rational to someone on the outside, but I just found out about Tesla taking autonomous driving to China and the penny dropped. Huge city populations, only 44% of households own a car (52% in urban areas) - seems like robotaxis could be a huge money spinner for whoever manages to make them reliable. And China is exactly where we need it now, as they are the World's biggest CO
2 emitters.
