The Tesla Cybertruck has changed a lot since Elon Musk first unveiled the electric pickup in 2019. Not everything he talked about has happened.
The first Tesla pickup truck was finally unveiled last November. The car had many problems and also faced a lack of scaling to meet demand. The Cybertrucks currently on sale have a shorter range and a much higher price than Musk had envisioned, with the currently available model costing almost $100,000. Below are some more promised and unrealized features.
In 2019, Elon Musk said that The cheapest version of the Cybertruck will cost $39,900, and more advanced variants will be sold for $49,900 and $69,900. as you know, this did not work out. In 2023, Tesla announced that its cheapest model would cost $60,990 and would be available in 2025. The price increase disappointed many Tesla fans and made the Cybertruck a status car.
In August of this year, Tesla unannouncedly raised the price of the all-wheel drive version of the Cybertruck to almost $100,000 and canceled the pre-order option for the cheapest version with rear-wheel drive for $61,000. It is unclear what the plans are for this model.
In 2019, Musk promised that the most advanced three-engine version of the Cybertruck would have a range of 500 miles (just over 800 km). This would have made it one of the most autonomous electric vehicles, but the promise was again unrealized.
Now the automaker is advertising a $100,000 all-wheel drive Cybertruck with a range of 512 km and a $120,000 model with 485 km. Tesla is planning to offer a «range extender» — a device that is located in the body of the car and increases the range to more than 757 km. Production of the device is expected to begin in early 2025, and it will cost an additional $16,000.
Elon Musk concluded the Cybertruck presentation with an unexpected announcement of the Cyberquad, a Tesla ATV. He wrote on Twitter that the Cyberquad would be a two-seater ATV to be released simultaneously with the pickup truck.
In fact, Tesla has released a children’s version of Cyberquad for $1900which currently costs $1650, but a full-size ATV has not materialized yet.
One of the most interesting promises about the Cybertruck is its ability to float for a short time. Elon Musk wrote that the pickup truck will be waterproof enough to cross rivers, lakes, and even not too rough seas.
Although the Cybertruck has a «fording mode», which allows you to drive in water 76 cm deep for a limited time, it’s not exactly a boat in the sea. However, Musk has not abandoned the feature, which confirmed in December last year. Tesla is planning another update that will allow Cybertruck to overcome at least 100 meters of water obstacles.
In 2021, Musk wrote that Cybertrucks would have four motors, one for each wheel, allowing it to turn 360° and move diagonally like a crab. Cybertruck’s lead engineer, Wes Morrill, said in April that Tesla had experimented with this feature but had not found a practical application for it.
Source: Business Insider