The Tesla Cybertruck will have to undergo redesign to be approved for sale in Europe and China, but Elon Musk is confident that this may happen next year.
Elon Musk took a couple of Cybertruck-related questions during the annual stockholder meeting with Tesla investors, and spilled some beans on the future plans for its global release.
He reiterated that the current Cybertruck has been designed for sale in the North American market. If Tesla took into consideration all the requirements for certifying the Cybertruck in Europe or China, that would have made it a “frankly worse” product, he explained.
Still, a redesigned Cybertruck for release in Europe or China is very much in the cards, but Tesla wants to go through the production ramp in the US first. In the process, it is trying to slash the Cybertruck manufacturing costs not only by achieving volume production, but also by shaving off “pennies” from each component to get to the cost reduction that would allow it to lower the Cybertruck price.
“Going from prototype to mass production is 100 times harder than creating the prototype, and then lowering production costs by 20% is even harder than that,” said Elon, complaining that he now spends a lot of time with the unglamorous work of bringing down production costs that he called Game of Nickels.
Tesla will then apply the lessons learned to global versions of the Cybertruck, each redesigned for the requirements of a particular market, and he thinks that certifying those for sale may happen “some time next year.”
Europe, for example, not only drives smaller vehicles than the US, but also has stricter requirements for how sharp the edges of a car can be, in order to lower the probability for serious injuries during accidents with pedestrians. The American-made Cybertruck is pretty edgy at the moment, and doesn’t conform to those rules, so it will have to undergo a slight redesign to fit in Europe.
Still, Tesla is currently on a Cybertruck tour of Europe it calls the Odyssey, displaying it in showrooms and expos across the Old Continent to huge crowds. Elon Musk reiterated that it is not a question of demand, but rather of time and compliance, for the Cybertruck to be approved for sale in Europe.
Last but not least, concerning the American market, Tesla may be done with the deliveries of the inaugural Cybertruck Foundation series units this month, and will start shipping the non-Foundation Cybertrucks to their owners in Q3.
