Tesla Cybertruck workers begin 3-day furlough, signaling demand slowdown | Hacker News Reader

Tesla Cybertruck workers begin 3-day furlough, signaling demand slowdown

finance.yahoo.com

16 pointsaddaon27 comments

They had a five-year backlog to get through. Presumably everybody who pre-ordered one now has one. It's hard to envision a lot of new demand now that it's one of the most maligned vehicles in automotive history - especially now with winter coming on and it's becoming apparent nobody tested this thing in the snow (the issue of snow covering the headlights while you're driving down the road).

Short of starting over, I don't know what Tesla needs to do to get this thing back on track. As it is, now that they've worked through the backlog, I can't imagine new sales being particularly strong.

Anyone have a guess as to when another company's EV surpasses Cybertruck sales? Apparently it is the 3rd best selling EV in the U.S. behind the Tesla Model Y and Model 3.

https://insideevs.com/news/737158/us-ev-sales-q3-2024/

wonder if that was clearing the backlog

Sounds like you are making a Q4-2024 guess. Any thoughts on which vehicle might surpass it? Honda Prologue? Chevrolet Equinox EV? Ford Mach-E? Hyundai Ioniq 5?

Put me down for an Ioniq 5

Date for when you think the Ioniq 5 will surpass Cybertruck deliveries? Q3 of 2025? (to give some time for the 2025 Ioniq 5s to spool up production at the new plant in Georgia)? Sooner?

could be today:

https://electrek.co/2024/12/03/hyundai-ioniq-5-sets-new-us-r...

Nice.

> I don't know what Tesla needs to do to get this thing back on track

Elon's going to have to tell people to do something that everyone else thinks is impossible. Literally a 200IQ move.

They could redesign it to be globally compliant. As it stands now, its too big and heavy and can't be sold outside North America, even though it has supporters in other countries.

> the issue of snow covering the headlights while you're driving down the road

This same thing happened to traffic lights when they switched to LEDs - there was no longer heat to prevent snow/ice over the light.

I got inside one in the showroom and didn't like ALL the functions on the touchscreen including gearshift, plus no turn signals.

It is amazing the quick access screen to common functions is a bunch of postage-stamp sized targets, 2 feet to your right.

I know there are less parts to break, but I wonder how many sales drop off because of these cheapified cluttered ui moves for all of their vehicles?

Re headlights, I'm not yet convinced this is a problem. I've seen some stationary depictions, but none of moving buildup. It will depend a lot on the airflow and how sticky the snow is in practice

> They had a five-year backlog to get through.

That they clearly needed less than a year to actually get through.

The claims of 1M Cybertruck reservations was a lie. Alternatively, the extreme majority of reservations were simply cancelled.

Weren't the majority of the reservation for the $40,000 version? Which with inflation, is unlikely to ever see the light of day?

Can’t vouch for the veracity of this[1] but, if true, it’s a pretty damning indictment on the Cyber Truck’s popularity.

Just watched one YouTube video where the hosts daughter was bemoaning that they were no longer the only Cyber Truck in the neighborhood and that there were now two more owners and how much this lessened her happiness in the thing.

That’s what happens when people buy into an ideal that’s in reality just an expensive toy.

[1] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/only-2-5-of-cybertru...

>Can’t vouch for the veracity of this

That's a pretty big indicator of gossip.

Isn't that just the thing? Just like exotic sports cars, if everyone has one its just not special anymore. In this case it gets weird when there are multiple of them.

There has never been a report from Business Insider on Tesla that isn't negative clickbait speculation. Pay attention on their reporting and you'll notice that all they do, there's nothing of substance.

They've done similar reports in the past on furloughs, Tesla were simply stopping the production line to reconfigure it.

So many of those freaking ugly shitmobiles in my area. I think 1/2 of those numbers probably ended up here. People with money and no taste or research skills.

Never ceases to amaze me how people are insulted by some car. It's almost like Italians when you tell them pizza was popularized by Americans.

The car is a statement, it's not people's fault for reacting negatively to the statement.

There's one thing to not like it, completely different to go on vandalizing or sending birds to drivers.

Regardless, it's a truck - a utilitarian vehicle. It's not event meant to be a statement.

It's marketed as a Truck, it's not much of a truck in the traditional sense, hence people's problem with it.

My Japanese K-Truck is more of a "TRUCK" imo.

Sorry, but what?

It has pretty large bed, straps, 240v supply, etc.

a month or so ago looking at the cybertruck page, it prominently said "order now for delivery in nov/dec" and the cyberbeast had free self-driving (and I swear free home power interface)

now you have to enter your zipcode to see the estimate and no free stuff.

I guess you do get free supercharging for 3 months if you buy one by the end of the year

Probably be mass produced for the military soon…

But how would we get our enemies to take them?

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