Tesla pickup faces tough task
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is aiming for the heart of the auto industry’s profit machine with Tesla’s own version of the heavy pickup truck.
The sharp-angled, stainless steel Cybertruck was rolled onstage Thursday before a wall of lasers and flame. The electric pickup truck will be in production in 2021, Musk said at Tesla’s Hawthorne, California, event. The pickup, which Musk said will cost $39,900 and up, will have an estimated battery range of between 250 miles to more than 500 miles.
With the launch, Tesla is edging into the most profitable corner of the U.S. auto market, where buyers tend to have fierce brand loyalty.
Many pickup truck buyers stick with the same brand for life, choosing a truck based on what their mom or dad drove or what they decided was the toughest model, said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. “They’re very much creatures of habit,” Gordon said. Getting a loyal Ford F-150 buyer to consider switching to another brand such as a Chevy Silverado, “it’s like asking him to leave his family,” he said.
Musk stands to face competition when his truck hits the market. Ford, which has long dominated the pickup truck landscape, plans to launch an all-electric F-150 pickup. General Motors CEO Mary Barra said its battery-electric pickup will come out by the fall of 2021.
Rivian, a startup based near Detroit with a factory in Normal, Ill., plans to begin production in the second half of 2020 on an electric pickup that starts at $69,000 and has a battery range of 400-plus miles. The Rivian truck will be able to tow 11,000 pounds, go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds and wade into 3 feet of water, the company said. Ford said in April it would invest $500 million in Rivian.
The Cybertruck starts at $39,900 for a single-motor model, with a base price of $69,900 for a tri-motor allwheel drive model. Production for the latter is planned for late 2022. Tesla’s pickup is more likely to appeal to weekend warriors who want an electric vehicle that can handle some outdoor adventure. And it could end up cutting into Tesla’s electric vehicle sedan sales.
Tesla has struggled to meet delivery targets for its sedans, and some fear the new vehicle will shift the company’s attention away from the goal of more consistently meeting its targets.
“We have yet to see Tesla really make good on some of the very tight deadlines they imposed on themselves,” said Jeremy Acevedo, manager of industry analysis at Edmunds.