Elon Musk says Tesla might make a smaller Cybertruck
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is fond of making announcements on Twitter, but his tweetstorm on Sunday evening has been particularly revealing, even by his standards.
Musk shared numerous factoids about the recently unveiled, polygon-shy Cybertruck, sort of announced the possibility of Tesla making a smaller Cybertruck in the future (so, even fewer polygons? Kidding.), and tickled our imagination by saying the company will announce more stuff next year.
Late on Sunday, Musk said the number of pre-orders for the Cybertruck has reached 187,000, before updating the number to 200,000 just a few hours later.
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For comparison, this is roughly equivalent to the number of pre-orders Tesla got for the Model 3 in 2016 -- 134,000 in the first 24 hours, and 325,000 within a week -- though it should be noted that the pre-order deposit for the Model 3 was $1,000 vs just $100 for the Cybertruck.
Then, Musk shared a bunch of details about Cybertruck's armored body, and shed some light on the failed glass test. According to Musk, the previous sledgehammer-to-door test damaged the base of glass on the Cybertruck window, which is why the glass cracked in the next test. "Should have done steel ball on window, *then* sledgehammer the door," he tweeted.
And here are some Cybertruck factoids, courtesy of Musk.
Cybertruck's "planar" design is due to the fact that "you can't stamp ultra-hard 30x steel, because it breaks the stamping press"
The company wanted to use titanium skins for Cybertruck, but went with "cold-rolled stainless" steel as it's much stronger, and cheaper
Tesla will have to "come up with new body manufacturing methods" for the Cybertruck, but once it does, Musk is "confident" the Cybertruck will cost less to produce, "because of its simplicity & lower part count." This was in answer to a looming question people will undoubtedly start asking: Will Tesla be able to build enough Cybertrucks to satisfy demand?
Musk even shared a short video of Cybertruck pulling a Ford F-150 uphill, though the steepness of that hill is hard to judge from the video.
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According to Musk, the Cybertruck is the company's last product unveil "for a while," but the company will have some "(mostly) unexpected technology announcements next year."
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And then, the big one: Answering one fan's question, Musk said that making a smaller Cybertruck "makes sense" in the long term.
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Yes, that's a lot of info to process. Here's the TLDR: Cybertruck pre-orders going well, stainless steel strong, no product announcements in the near future but smaller Cybertruck not out of the question. Phew!