Earlier this year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was cautious about the Cybertruck. “Hopefully next year” they will be ready to put it into production together with Semi and Roadster after 2021 and 2022 would not have been worthwhile, he said in a telephone conference in January.
That didn’t sound very optimistic after the first Cybertruck postponement in August 2021. In April, however, Musk announced a wave of new Tesla products for 2023 and a little later specified that production of the Cybertruck would begin in the middle of next year. According to information, additional systems were recently ordered that are scheduled to go into operation in July in the new Gigafactory in Texas.
Technology for 750,000 Cybertruck drives
In an interview at the end of May, CEO Musk gave another reason for the delayed start of the electric pickup, which should initially be produced by the end of 2021, in addition to the shortage of batteries and then chips: Tesla overdid it with the iterations, he said. In fact, he himself had occasionally mentioned new features such as up to four motors and rear-wheel steering, and the last Cybertruck prototypes presented or caught also differed externally from the first. In the interview, Musk then revealed a more specific goal after the design is “finally” complete: Production is likely to begin in mid-2023, roughly 12 months from now, he said.
That also sounds relatively cautious, but it seems that Tesla is preparing to start Cybertruck production in July 2023. This is based on information from industry circles that reached teslamag.de this week. Accordingly, new systems for the production of Cybertruck drives were ordered from German special companies, which, among other things, also equip the Tesla factories in China and Germany.
The machines for this are already being built and are scheduled to produce the first parts in Texas at the beginning of July 2023. If they run fast enough and almost continuously, their capacity is sufficient for around 750,000 drives per year, it said.
That fits with the production goal that Tesla CEO Musk named earlier this year when he made the Cybertruck launch in 2023 appear uncertain with a “hopefully”. It should be around 250,000 units per year, although the ramp-up will take a while, he explained at the conference with analysts.
Together with the information about the drive capacity, this would mean that Tesla plans with an average of three motors per Cybertruck. The earlier specific information about versions with one, two or three drives has now been deleted from the Tesla website, and at the end of 2021 Musk confirmed that the Cybertruck should also be available with four motors.
The new largest Giga press probably for Tesla
It was not possible to find out whether Tesla had also ordered all the other necessary systems for Cybertruck production from July 2023. It’s likely, though, because lead times for specialty machines are long, and an additional line just for powertrain components without all the rest would make little sense.
So far, only the order for a die-casting machine from the Italian manufacturer Idra Systems has been practically confirmed. He already delivered the Giga presses with 6,000 tons of clamping force for Model Y in several Tesla factories and reported last March that he had received the first order for 8,000 tons. Idra did not name the customer, but the CEO spoke of a leading global manufacturer of alternative fuel vehicles.
If you like our news and you want to be the first to get notifications of the latest news, then follow us on Twitter and Facebook page and join our Telegram channel. Also, you can follow us on Google News for regular updates.