About 20 years ago, Pontiac made the same mistake Ford made about 40 years before that when it confused different with ugly. The interesting thing is that neither the Edsel – Ford’s ugly duckling – or the Aztek (which was Pontiac’s) were bad vehicles.
Unlike Tesla’s Aztek-Edsel, the Cybertruck.
It is not merely ugly. It is ludicrous – to borrow a word. Three tons of glued-together stainless steel exterior panels covering up a conventional unibody chassis that holds a battery pack larger (and heavier) than a ’70s VW Beetle in order to store the electrical energy equivalent of about 17 gallons of gasoline that weighs about 100 pounds . . . in order to tout a best-case range of 340 miles – far less than the highway-driving range of any current V8 powered half-ton truck. And that’s if you don’t use the Cybertruck’s touted 11,000 pound maximum towing capacity, which will drastically reduce its driving range. As will the use of its touted ability accelerate to 60 MPH in less than four seconds.
Though as long a full-size truck, it is only available with an awkardly designed six foot bed which – if used to haul anything heavy – will also dramatically reduce how far you can haul before you must stop to wait for at least five times as long as it takes to fully refuel a V8 powered truck to instill a partial charge, which is the only kind of “fast” charge you can get.
In sum, it is largely useless as a truck.
Of course, it was not designed to be one. Not really. Not functionally.
Just visually – in a middle-school scribbler’s kind-of-way. The idea was to market something that looked “cool” – to people who think Teslas are “cool.” This idea was not unsound, as such. But it depended for its success on people continuing to think Teslas – and Elon Musk – are “cool.” Those people no longer do, as anyone who isn’t living under a rock knows. They hate Tesla – and Musk – because of shifting political winds, which is interesting because it says a lot about the real reasons why these people bought Teslas – when they were still selling.
Has the “climate” ceased “changing”?
This was, of course, the touted reason – the virtue-signaled – for buying Teslas. We are concerned about the “climate” and want to do our bit to prevent the “change” that is going to result in millions of people dying. A familiar refrain. The same one emanating from the same people, curiously enough, during the four years of “COVID.” Some of the most ardent “maskers” drove Teslas.
Naturally.
Of course it was all a pose. And now the mask has come off. Tesla is having trouble selling its devices, especially the Cybertruck. That is putting it very mildly.
Remember when Musk claimed he’d secured 1 million paid reservations to hold a place in line for a new Cybertruck? So far, Tesla has actually sold fewer than 50,000 of them since this thing’s introduction as a new model about two years ago. These numbers are so bad they make the Aztek and the Edsel look like runaway hits in retrospect.
Dealers are sitting on fleets of unsold 2024 Cybertrucks – $200 million in unsold inventory – they are desperate to offload at almost any price. Things are so bad that Tesla no longer accepts Cybertrucks as trade-ins, according to Elektric, which is a sort of Playboy for EV people:
“Many Cybertruck owners reported trying to trade-in the truck for a new vehicle and they were told that the automaker currently doesn’t accept its own vehicle as a trade-in. . . Some owners who have had their trucks in service for extended periods of time are also trying to get Tesla to take the truck back, but the company is forcing them to go through the Lemon Law process.”
It gets better – well, worse:
“Used Cybertruck prices are down 55 percent year over year, 13 percent over the last three months, and 6 percent over the last month,” Elektric reports.
This is catastrophically severe depreciation. A new (2025) Cybertruck lists for $10 shy of $80,000 (“$79,990” being the same species of thing as still being “39” when you’re a few days shy of your 40th birthday). If current depreciation trends hold – and things may get worse – that nearly $80k device will be worth less than half as much a year from now. There are not many people willing to sign up for a $40,000 loss over 12 months. Especially when it is no longer perceived as virtuous to drive one of these devices.
“As Tesla doesn’t take the Cybertruck as a trade-in,” Elektric reports, “other used car dealers are also reticent about buying the vehicle. They have been known to give low-ball offers to potential sellers as they wait to see where the price will stabilize.”
This is probably an expectation on par with expecting the Hindenburg to “stabilize” after it erupted in flames at Lakehurst, New Jersey.
Because – unlike the Aztek and the Edsel – the Cybertruck is more than just ugly.
. . .
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“This was, of course, the touted reason – the virtue-signaled – for buying Teslas. We are concerned about the “climate” and want to do our bit to prevent the “change” that is going to result in millions of people dying.”
As much as I dislike Elon and EVs, to be fair, there were some more pragmatic reasons to buy one of his golf carts; at least earlier on.
I know a guy who bought a Model S back in 2017. He explained to me that due to free charging, no registration taxes, other available tax write-offs and subsidies that applied at the time, and the fact prices of second-hand Teslas were on par, or even higher than with new ones, which were in short supply, it was a very sound decision for him.
And, having – subsidized, of course – solar panels on his roof, he would also be able to charge at home for free, AND get money from the power company for the feed-in tariff as well.
He sold the car two years later with zero loss and a substantial saving on fuel and servicing.
So yes, some were out to ‘save the planet’, but others just capitalized on the government handouts.
Which, as we know, are the main reason why A) there even IS a market for EVs’, and B) that Elon is supposedly the richest person in the world.
Youtuber Whistlin diesel put a cybertruck through it paces vs an F150.
They ripped the hitch off the cybertruck because it wasn’t attached to anything.
Not worthy of the price tag
Pretty much all EVs are just overpriced grocery getters, they are useless for long trips or doing actual work like a truck was meant to do.
I agree. The cyber truck is incredibly ugly and useless. Tesla needs to build a hybrid vehicle. By doing so, it would increase its sales volume substantially.
EV owners are like drunks at ~10am, when they realize the “hottie” they were sleeping with, turned out to be a HOT MESS (in some cases, literally)! And the epic depreciation is the “hangover”.
As Mr. T once said: “I pity the fool!”
Just me or does anyone else think the Edsel not bad looking?
I get that it had quality and reliability issues and was sort of a tweener size.
Much rather have an Edsel than a Wankpanzer.
That era of Ford motor company, full-size vehicle’s had a lot of Packard predictor design elements to them, and the Edsel there as well. Packer did the design for better, however.
I’ve always liked the looks of the “horse collar” Edsels. Though mechanically they were just a Ford, which wasn’t so bad as early 60s quality went.
“Just visually – in a middle-school scribbler’s kind-of-way.”
I’m thinking “middle-school” is a little generous, Eric.
If I had enough money to buy any EV, I would buy an old car and put the rest in Gold.
‘Rushing to the rescue, the heroes of the tragedy dashing, heedless of danger, to help the injured to safety — while others, beyond help, perish in the flames.’ — Pathé News, describing a Cybertruck wreck
Support your local fire department.
Even though Tesla is now despised by the propagandized liberal morons, some states are STILL pushing EVs such as offering credits for people who aren’t insanely wealthy to buy one. Will Tesla EVs be excluded? And what are these states going to do if they don’t succeed in getting more people to buy an EV, try to pull a Joe Biden & MANDATE that people buy one, citing “Climate Emergency”?
The Cybertruck promised a $40k half ton truck class vehicle for $40k, requiring an up front refundable investent of just $100 Biden Bux.
A lot of people bit if for no other reason than the potential resale opportunity. What else were they going to do with the stimmy checks? Arbitrage OLED Switch or Playstation 5 for $100 profit?
BTW, did you notice how all of the video game consoles which were unobtainium during the pandemic suddenly flooded the market after the Supreme Court’s decision on the student loan fiasco?
My local Best Buy had all of the consoles in large quantities the weekend after the 4th of July in 2023.
Just imagine how beautiful this world would be today if our technology had been used for good instead of building a digital prison planet with the intent to kill maim sicken and destroy the human race.
I don’t think many realize what has REALLY been stolen from us!
No one cared. They got to stay home, play Mario Kart on Switch, and watch Baby Yoda on whatever streaming channel has him as an exclusive.
The repeated message I received from friends, family, and co-workers in response to criticism of the lockdowns was, “Shh, dude. Chillax. You’re harshing a good thing.”
All the brilliant engineers that once left universities to go work for GM, Boeing, GE and other titans of industry to create a better world no longer do that.
In a post industrial/financialized economy, those minds now get scooped up by Wall St to engineer all sorts of fvckery and various accounting schemes to skim off the top of the US dollar/Fed grift.
The local GM software development center in Austin is filled with Indian visa labor.
It’s true.
And they do that, because there isn’t any money to be earned by doing something constructive.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Happy Easter!
Craig over at the Flying Wheels YouTube channel has done a long term ownership review on the Cybertruck and when he sells it loses his shirt but that said he loses his shirt on every EV he buys and holds onto, same thing with high end imports.
An ugly,reliable and affordable car might well hold it’s value on the used car market especially if it becomes a cult car. An EV on the other hand never will because the batteries dying off in less than 10 years means no one would put the money into it.
Hi Landru,
Yup. An Aztek could provide reliable service for 20 years and 250,000 miles with decent care. The Cyberturducken has a useful life (if you want to call it that) of maybe 10 years.
Therein lies the feature, not the bug, for a car manufacturer.
EVs are shite!
F150s and their aluminum bodies are riveted and GLUED (bonded) into place w/3M Fusor adhesives – since 2015, so this amazing Tesla technology is not new.
The best technologies known to man ALWAYS come out of Sub-Saharan Africa – as evidenced by super-sperm-spreading-Albino Musk.
Hence why Ford’s market cap is minuscule next to Tesla.
Mercedes was gluing on panels since at least the mid 80s.
I sometimes forget that once upon a time, MBs were not garbage.
Was that back in the diesel E class W116/W123 days?
W123 240D for sure.
Pontiac Fiero, anyone?
Elon is sacrificing Tesla (and the Cybertruck in particular) for his valiant attempt to rein in our runaway government spending. The lack of buyers is what happens when you eliminate half your potential buyers on the front end.
Hi Sherm,
My take: I think Musk is on to his new grift. The rocket grift. EVs are the old grift.
If you’re a true libertarian you shouldn’t be quite so harsh.
I’m no Elon fanboy, but his actions are apparently maiming Tesla, which easily could impact everything else he does/owns down the line – the deep state does not like its money flow interrupted.
Libertarianism has noting to do with refraining from “harsh” criticism. Being a libertarian means practicing (and perhaps promoting) the non-aggression principle. Being a government rent seeking grifter is inconstant with the non-aggression principle. EP is simply shining a light on this.
Got it – the world according to you.
Nope. Not me, it’s the NAP. Educate yourself, Sherm.
We’ve got one with a paid agenda.
“The deep state” is a rather ambiguous term, isn’t it?
Tell us all what money means, exactly, to the people that own the printing presses that make it?
Don’t forget the AI grift and his positioning that government eliminate personnel . . . So they can more easily be replaced with AI that Elon would live to provide.
Schadenfreude is a bitch.
To quote Mencken(I believe), “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it…good and hard.”
Electrified future my butt.
Just don’t “throw it in the woods”, you might harm a squirrel.
Dont burn my forest, bro!
Hi Ernie,
In Oregon, some people actually think that a forest burning means it’s “being restored”. And I don’t know if you heard, but a section of the Amazon rainforest is being clearcut for building a highway so an elite group of billionaires can drive to this year’s COP30 climate summit to likely lecture the masses on how they need to eat bugs and drive an EV to “Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave the planet from cliiiiiiiiiiiimate change”.
Whistlin’Diesel used a crowbar to remove a stainless steel trim piece on a CyberTruck.
It took about five seconds to peel it from the CyberTruck.
You make the call.
I suspect, just a hunch, that the CyberTruck tests by Whistlin’Diesel are watched by many thousands of viewers interested in how any vehicle does perform.
CyberTruck is not in the big league.
Happy Easter!
Happy birthday to Adolf too!
Hi Drumphish. Even though it’s Cybercrap, most automotive trim is held on by hidden clips and can be removed relatively easily.
I get that.
There are no hidden clips, just glue. Shouldn’t the glue hold a stronger bond?
Whistlin’Diesel doesn’t care, is irreverent, destroys everything he tests.
Hunts down car thieves.
There is no rest for the stupid, like Trump, a rock pile has more sense.
Happy Birthday to the original leader!
May he rise again!
Of course December 25 was His birthday. Also, no need for Him to rise again; He IS risen. Happy Easter.
Jesus’ birthday was NOT December 25th. To believe that is to believe in fairy tales. The most likely date of Jesus’ birth is the date they’ve made the greatest mockery of – April 1. December 25th is a sun-worship day. They wouldn’t have been in the fields with their flocks in December.
And while we’re being honest, we aren’t certain at all what the month really is, what year it really is…I mean we live in a world where October (OCTA = 8) is the 10th month somehow, and September (Septa = 7) is somehow the 9th. December (Deca = 10) is the 12th month?
I do appreciate the sentiment, however, even though I rather disagree with all of the paganistic rituals associated with it that seem steeped in black magic, like magic rabbits that somehow lay eggs.
There are a lot of things I’m reluctant to celebrate simply because the truth is so obscured in the world we live in.
Amen to that!