Elon Musk: Let’s Not Overhype Tesla Cybertruck Start Of Production

On Tesla’s Q4 2022 and full-year 2022 conference call for shareholders (still occurring as I’m typing this), we received updates on Tesla Cybertruck production and overall Tesla production capacity.

Tesla Cybertruck Production Timeline

On today’s Tesla conference call for shareholders, there was a question about whether start of Cybertruck production is still slated for mid-2023. Tesla CEO Elon Musk answered that he didn’t really want people to overhype start of production, because it’s really the start of volume production that matters.

Nonetheless, Musk reiterated that start of production should be this summer, according to the company’s plans, but that volume production won’t come about until 2024. He did not indicated when in 2024 he sees Tesla achieving volume production.

Tesla Production Target for 2023

Asked about whether Tesla was still on target to produce and sell (deliver) 1.8 million vehicles in 2023, Musk hesitated for a moment and chuckled. After thinking on it for a moment, seemingly debating with himself whether to make this public or not, he clarified that Tesla has an internal production target of nearly 2 million rather than 1.8 million for this year. However, with the various things that have happened in recent years — pandemic, automotive chip supply crisis, war in Ukraine, fast global inflation and potential recession, etc. — they reduced that to 1.8 million for their public target. Musk laughed that there seems to be a force majeure every year, so they are trying to be cautious, or perhaps realistic.