Elon Musk at Tesla Cybertruck delivery event
Tesla
Some Cybertruck reservation-holders told Business Insider they were disappointed by delivery event.It lasted 30 minutes and fans later found the truck had a lower range and higher price on their own.Some reservation-holders said they might ditch the truck, but others plan to buy it anyway.
After a four-year wait, the official Cybertruck launch party lasted about 30 minutes and left some order-holders wanting more.
CEO Elon Musk stood in the bed of the Cybertruck listing off its specs – many of which had been leaked ahead of the launch. He also showed videos of the Cybertruck in action, racing a Porsche 911 while pulling a 911 and beating out a heavy-duty Ford F-Series in a truck pull.
While the typical Tesla razzle-dazzle was fun to watch, some order-holders who spoke with Business Insider said it was what Musk failed to mention in his presentation that left them disappointed.
Zack Nelson, who attended the event and is known for his YouTube channel JerryRigEverything, said the delivery event left many attendees confused and disappointed.
“Everyone was kind of shocked. All this hype and then it just ends in like 30 minutes,” he said, adding that leaving price and range out of the official presentation was the biggest let-down.
“Near the end, I thought he was gearing up for some big announcement, but no it was just over. We all turned and filed out of the factory,” he said.
Following the launch party, all of the specs and prices for the three Cybertruck variations were posted to Tesla’s website. There, order holders discovered that the price would be far above the $40,000 promised in 2019, and that the top range of 340 miles was far less than the 500-mile range Musk touted years ago.
Four years waiting, 30 minutes of disappointment
Christopher Bowe, an EV enthusiast who runs a podcast on electric cars, said there’s a 10% chance he’ll actually buy the truck when the trim level he wants to order hits the market, likely in 2025.
He’s holding onto his $100 reservation just in case, but he felt somewhat let down by the official release after four years of anticipation.
“I think there were a lot of unrealistic expectations because the original promised price and the original ranges were so transformative,” Bowe said. “The original bar was so high and then when you wait four years for it, it can be pretty underwhelming. It might have been received better if they hadn’t set the bar so high.”
Nelson put it this way: “We were promised an industry-killing machine and that was not it. I felt like we’d been led on.”
“There are some things they’re just never going to deliver on like Elon said that glass was rock-proof. There’s a 0% chance that’s true,” Nelson continued. “Four years ago they threw a steel ball at the glass and then at this event they threw a baseball. Any car would survive a baseball being thrown at it.”
The Cybertruck launch was always going to be a difficult tightrope for Musk to walk, said Martin French, managing director at automotive consultancy Berylls.
“Elon’s damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t,” French told Business Insider. “If he puts on a show, people dismiss it as vaporware. If he doesn’t put on a show, then people leave disappointed.”
People will still buy the Cybertruck
In the end, French said he thinks Tesla will still be able to convert a lot of its 2 million reservations to real orders.
He might be right. Not all reservation holders we spoke with were disappointed by the event.
Matthew Donegan-Ryan, a Tesla owner and investor with multiple reservations, said he was impressed by the specs and had expected the higher price — at least at the onset of production.
“They had set out to build a vehicle that most people said was impossible to build,” Donegan-Ryan said. “And everyone said it definitely would be impossible to manufacture in an automated automotive line and he was able to lead the team into accomplishing that.”
Eric Locke, who placed his Cybertruck order the day it came out in 2019, felt the Cybertruck launch lacked some of the excitement of past Tesla events, but he’s still likely to nab one when his turn comes around.
“More than likely I will still buy one, but (I’m) very disappointed about the range,” said Locke, who already owns three other Teslas.