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Even if you put aside the unique design of the cybertruck and assume people would buy it. With the usage of steel you reduce a lot of the overlap you have with

Even if you put aside the unique design of the cybertruck and assume people would buy it. With the usage of steel you reduce a lot of the overlap you have with the other car lines. You now have to expend all of this R&D to build this new car model with no other model planned that might re-use it. You have to spin up all those addional lines with special equipment, building up the knowledge. Except to make Elon happy i do not really see the upside for Tesla. It just feels like to me that this car model will become a drag on Tesla both in terms of capital investment and a drain on the engineers time to iron out all the problems. Couldn't they have kept the weird shape but just used the same material as with the other cars. At least you would have a lot more re-use in that scenario.

Zigurd 3y ago
It is exactly "...a drag on Tesla both in terms of capital investment and a drain on the engineers time to iron out all the problems." Tesla has effectively one product: Model Y, which is a variant of an existing model, the Model 3, introduced in 2017. Cybertruck is the only new thing that had prospects of mass sales. The Semi is handmade in small quantities. No new Roadster, apparently. If anything were as far along as Cybertruck was a year ago, we would be awash in hype for it. Tesla has a product pipeline issue. The reason that is important is that Tesla took EVs seriously when other car makers did not, which gave tesla a multi-year head start. But now some competitors like Hyundai/Kia have broad product lines and are bringing out second-generation prodcuts.