Elon Musk's pessimism about the Tesla Cybertruck was very much warranted

Even in Matte Black, the angular Tesla pickup truck looks full of flaws

By Collin Woodard3 min readUpdated November 7, 2023

Allegedly, production of the Tesla $TSLA Cybertruck will begin before the end of the year. At least that’s what Elon Musk says, and you know you can always trust a Musk timeline. As more videos come out showing pre-production prototypes, though, including quite a few broken ones, it’s starting to look like Elon Musk was probably right when he said Tesla had dug its own grave with the Cybertruck. Take, for example, the Cybertruck prototype that showed up at a Malibu cars and coffee event over the weekend, as reported by InsideEVs.

The author, Daniel Golson, was at the event and got an up-close look at the Cybertruck that was driven by Tesla designer Franz von Holzhausen. Based on what Golson saw, the matte-black-wrapped Cybertruck is either a long way from being production-ready, or it’s just going to go into production anyway regardless of all of its flaws. Odds are, it’s the latter. From InsideEVs:

I’ve been around hundreds of prototype cars in my career, ranging from early test mules to near-production prototypes, and I’ve never seen an automaker proudly present something of this poor quality, especially not this late in development. It is absolutely baffling to me that Tesla’s lead designer would parade around a vehicle in this condition just weeks before deliveries of production cars are allegedly commencing and even more baffling that he’d park it at such a public enthusiast event.

As to Golson’s specific objections to the truck’s design:

While it fixes the stainless steel’s reflection and fingerprint issues, the matte black wrap makes build quality problems even more noticeable. Some of the gaps between panels were big enough to stick a finger through, with no visible seals or trim pieces even for the frunk. The lower sections of the front doors were particularly bad, with big gaps both in terms of width and depth. All four angular fender flares were misaligned and ill-fitting, but each one in different ways or amounts, honestly an impressive feat. The tailgate had maybe the worst fitment of all and was uneven to boot, which is even more noticeable when the taillights are illuminated. Keep in mind that Musk told employees that all Cybertruck parts needed to be built to “sub-10 micron accuracy” in an email that leaked earlier this year. I’m not a human tape measure, but this Cybertruck certainly didn’t seem to adhere to that standard.

Yeah, that sounds (and looks) bad. Golson is describing legitimately terrible build quality that we haven’t seen on anything but the most egregious of poorly built Teslas in the past. Even the wrap itself appeared to be poorly applied, with plenty of bubbles and several spots where the wrap was already peeling off of the bodywork. Oh, and it looks like visibility is going to be a total nightmare.

Those aren’t the only problems with the Cybertruck that Golson witnessed, though, so head on over to InsideEVs to give the rest of the article a read. And if you were still planning to buy one, you might want to reconsider that idea.

Collin Woodard is an automotive journalist with Jalopnik, which like Quartz is owned by G/O Media.

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