By now Tesla fans are well aware that the company, and its CEO Elon Musk, aren’t very good at meeting targets and timelines. It therefore comes as no surprise that the Cybertruck—the company’s first electric pickup truck that looks like something out of Blade Runner—has been delayed to 2022.
Spotted by Electrek on Saturday, the order page for the Cybertruck on Tesla’s website now states the following: “You will be able to complete your configuration as production nears in 2022.” The message appears on the order forms for all three models of the Cybertruck—single motor RWD, dual motor AWD, and tri motor AWD—despite earlier assertions from the company that the dual and tri motor versions would be produced first, the outlet pointed out.
Tesla first announced the Cybertruck in 2019, later specifying that it would go into production in late 2021.
However, there were signs that Cybertruck wouldn’t be delivered this year. This past January, Musk said Tesla would have to get “lucky” to deliver a few Cybertrucks by the end of the year as previously announced. Even then, Musk affirmed that he expected volume productions to begin in 2022.
In July, when Tesla released its Q2 financial results, the company maintained its late 2021 production date and stated that Cybertruck would be manufactured in its Gigafactory in Texas after the Model Y, according to Electrek. Given that production on Model Y is slated to also start at the end of this year, there was some skepticism.
And when it comes to skepticism on Tesla targets, you’d be hard-pressed not to believe it. I don’t say it as an insult. While I personally do not own Tesla vehicles, and do not have any plans to, I believe production and delivery are commitments the company makes with the customer. If the customer’s fine with waiting, then who am I to judge?
It’s also not the easiest truck to make. The steel exoskeleton body, for instance, will require new manufacturing processes to bring it to fruition. Tesla has also said it needs to order certain equipment and machines to begin production.
The point here is to inform people with Cybertruck orders—which could exceed 1 million, according to a crowdsourced reservation tracker cited by various outlets—that they should mentally prepare themselves to wait until 2022.