The launch of Tesla’s highly anticipated all-electric Cybertruck has been pushed back—again!
Due to bottlenecks in the battery supply chain and global chip scarcity, Musk couldn’t keep up with his claims. In 2019, during the unveiling of the Cybertruck, Tesla had set a launch deadline for the end of 2021. With the deadline rapidly approaching and the automaker providing no updates, people regularly asked about the production status. In his defense, Elon Musk himself had recently mentioned possible supply chain issues and their probable impact on the development of the electric pickup.
“Due to the limited availability of battery cells and global supply chain challenges, we have shifted the launch of the Semi truck program to 2022,” said Tesla to its shareholders. “We are also making progress on the industrialization of Cybertruck, which is currently planned for Austin production subsequent to Model Y.”
Supporting his CEO, Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering, said that the team already finished the basic engineering but added that the fact that the electric pickup truck redefines how a vehicle is manufactured might also be a reason for the delay.
As of now, Tesla’s all-electric truck is in the alpha prototype stage and will most probably enter the beta phase later this year. However, Musk already acknowledged that ramping up the electric truck’s production will be a massive challenge because of the completely new architecture. “It’s going to be a great product; it might be our best product ever, but it does have a lot of fundamentally new design ideas,” stated Musk.
Of course, the numerous technical problems and shortages faced by suppliers around the world aren’t helping. The 4680 battery cells are the most significant area of concern, and more specifically, the production volume. As the Cybertruck and Tesla Semi will be requiring a lot of 4680 battery cells, they need to be produced in an incredibly high number to meet the manufacturer’s demands. And producing the vehicles in smaller quantities would only make the matter worse as the manufacturing cost would jump to more than $1 million apiece. Besides, the Model Y will use the same battery cells, and that’s currently Tesla’s model requiring the highest battery production volume.
At this point, we must prepare ourselves for a new 2022 timeline for the Cybertruck’s development and production—until the next pushback?
