One distinct difference is Bollinger trucks currently exist as more than rolling prototypes. They have already started production and let people outside the company drive them.
Bollinger trucks are also Class 3 vehicles, which means they don't have to pass the same crash tests a more mass market truck like an F-150 does. I've actually seen speculation Tesla may be planning the same trick with Cybertruck, which is fine, but that means you can't expect cyber truck to be built in Model 3 or Y volumes.
Tesla has clearly built in a pretty steep decline in battery costs, otherwise the pricing they announced simply isn't possible. Tesla is in a pretty good position to make predictions about future battery costs, but it's likely their lower costs will mean lower costs for everyone. Since there is no real date for cybertruck yet, the costs for other EV trucks may be quite a bit lower by the time cybertruck actually arrives.
There is a reason cars and trucks have body panels and bumpers that are not structural. With the structure exposed I'd be worried about minor damage activating the crumple zones and writing off the vehicle. Even the best body shops are not equipped to work on stainless steel. If Tesla is pulling the Class 3 trick cybertruck may not have crumple zones or other safety features to worry about, but that's a whole other problem if people are planning on making it their daily, family vehicle.
I really like the vehicles that Tesla actually builds and sells. They are getting better and better at running a production line and the Model Y teardown looks great. I'm less keen on the Tesla hype machine on unreleased things like roadster and cybertruck. Announcing pricing years in advance on unreleased cars results in needing to employ underhanded tricks like selling a $35,000 off-book model 3 you need to know a special process to order. All that to satisfy a commitment you made long before engineering was done, bill of materials complete, and a production line existed.
Announced cybertruck prices were always highly predicated on huge battery manufacturing improvements (we now know as 4680 cells). There have been plenty of rumours Tesla is having trouble ramping up production volume and yields since they have admitted the refreshed Y might not get them right away, so if cybertruck does ship in mid 2022 it's likely to be a much more model 3 launch trickling out than Y where they could ramp up very fast.
That's ignoring all the basic issues with the cybertruck design. Tesla doesn't have EU pedestrian regulations to contend with (something cybertruck's basic shape likely cannot ever meet), but they still have a bunch of NHTSA stuff that isn't going to be easy with the weird choices they made. I suspect the production cybertruck won't be quite as extreme as what they showed.
I really like my model 3, but I treat any statement by Tesla as a complete fabrication until it's in the metal off a production line.
On the other hand, I'd be shocked if Ford doesn't deliver exactly what they announced for the prices they predicted. If I was looking to buy an EV truck right now I'd put my money on F-150 Lightning.
The average consumer of a truck cares about the looks. Unless the Cybertruck allows buyers to address a use case that is so compelling that they're willing to excuse the looks, Tesla is not going to sell many of these.
Maybe Tesla is banking on luring people who don't usually buy trucks, or that truck buyers are so hungry for an EV that they'll go for it. But someone who doesn't usually buy trucks, would just buy a Model 3 or Y.
Traditional truck buyers tend to be fiercely loyal to their brand so they'd probably be more likely to wait for EV versions from the favorite truck brand.
To me, the big story about the Cybertruck has always been that it's a Tesla that's being launched price competitive with equivalent ICE vehicles. A 2WD Tundra or F150 with King Cab style 4 doors is only a couple grand less than the Cybertruck. A year of gas savings puts you ahead of the game in the Cybertruck.
With the Hummer at $110,000? All that goes out the door. You can buy a loaded to the gills gas guzzler and pay for 10 years of gas and still have $10,000 in the bank.
Ultimately the Cybertruck is the sort of EV which might hit mass adoption. The price is decent, Tesla has the brand to carry it, so long as the truck delivers on it's promises, I can see the Cybertruck being a huge hit. The Hummer is destined to ship a few thousand in the first couple years, then gather dust in showrooms.
Your opinions are totally valid here and I even agree with many of them but some facts that need highlighting:
The Cybertruck bed is a full 6 foot bed. It’s got a liner, it’s got tie-downs, it is a real truck bed. It is practically an F-150 clone in packaging and sizing.
The Cybertruck took almost exactly 4 years between concept reveal and shipping which is totally reasonable for the auto industry. Just ignore the Peter Molyneux-like promises of Elon Musk and it’s a totally normal car launch timeline.
Off-road deficiencies are all over the place with EVs because they’re heavy. No other brand is going to defy physics.
Cybertruck competitors in the same price range you can order are the F-150 and the Rivian R1T. The Rivian base model is $10k more and the F-150 base model is stripped down, you get things like manual adjusted seats. But hey, it is cheaper at the same range.
The mid-tier Rivian is basically the same price as the Cybertruck mid range. The one deficiency with is at the high end where Rivian offers more range, but that’s also a getting to be a very expensive truck.
The Hummer is not even in the same class of vehicle. It’s a 5 foot bed truck. If you’re going to point fingers at electric trucks that aren’t usable work trucks, that’s the one. It’s also starting at $100k. Not in the same price class at all.
Putting the feelings about Elon aside I’m just calling it like I see it here: Tesla is competing in a market which is highly lucrative, is very high volume, and they have some legitimate advantages like charging network and software that competitors can’t match. Heck, they’ve even got a reliability advantage over Rivian (Consumer Reports).
$125k. That's 2-3x Cybertruck price, so it better have some unique selling points!
Bollinger's design is very cool indeed. It'll be interesting to see what EV manufacturers will come up with without limitations set by combustion engines.
That said, also Cybertruck seems pretty innovative for me. Starting from $40k, practically indestructible shell for everyday purposes and likely still only about as heavy as Tesla Model S (probably around 4500-5000 lb — the real figure is not publicly known yet). That's because unlike most other vehicles, it doesn't need an internal frame but uses an "exosceleton" for structural support instead.
Cybertruck has also a climate controlled bed, as well as an obligatory AC (240V!) socket. Should be pretty amazing for camping, even in freezing temperatures.
The other big difference is that if you buy a cyber truck you'll be the laughing stock of your town. Tesla know this, and know that everyone is going to want to get rid of it as soon as possible when kids start pointing and laughing at them in the street.
Yes, I’d be surprised if it outsells the electric F150. That being said, I would obviously rather have the cybertruck. Time will tell if it was a good business decision or not for Tesla. I think they’ll do alright though, and nothing stops them from bringing out a more traditional truck later as well.
I wouldn’t be so quick to assume the Cybertruck look is what most pickup owners are going for. Maybe eventually...
In the near term Bollinger Motors[1] has electric pickup and SUV models that look a lot more like rugged high end trucks. Granted they cost nearly twice as much, but these are all luxury vehicles and people already spend 100k on a Ford Raptor.
Yeah I agree, I feel the Cybertruck design was primarily to get their cost down to $39k (Which with the pricing of the M3 now starting at $45k, there is no way the CT will hit that.) But what people really want is just a normal truck, but electric. That is why Tesla is at the top of the electric car market, nobody was making a "normal" looking electric car. Both Ford and Rivian took up that segment for pickup trucks, so it'll be interesting to see how this affects Tesla.
People aren't picking between a Ford F-150 or a Tesla where I live, they pick between a normal ICE 5-seater or a Tesla. It's not cherry-picked, it is me-picked, a sample of 1 but a sample nonetheless. You OTOH have fabricated a choice that makes it seem reasonable. A truck is a work vehicle, a Tesla is personal transportation. The cyber truck is the like-for-like with a F-150, or at least it is designed to be.
Ford still seems unable to produce significant numbers of EVs nearly as efficiently as Tesla can. I suspect pricing of the Cybertruck will be quite a bit lower than the Lightning.
Trucks will presumably stay at lower rates than cars. A Tesla truck would also have lower production rates than the Model 3. So 10,000 for a company with much less funding doesn't sound too bad.
The number of cybertruck reservations say otherwise. It’s riskier, yes, but might payoff. I wouldn’t buy a normal truck, but a cybertruck is my dream vehicle. I’d rather own that than anything else, even if money was no object.
And I’m far from a Tesla fanboy.
It's encouraging to see this. It's about time for electric pickup trucks. The price point ($60K) is going to be a problem for work trucks.
They talk about high speed, not low-speed high-torque. They don't say much about how the drivetrain behaves at low speed. Do they have locking differentials, or something that prevents wheel spin? It's a two-motor system. Does the motor control system know how to keep the front and back wheels in sync when traction is bad? You don't have a front-to-back differential; that's a software operation here.
How good is very low speed, high-torque operation? There's no shifting, so you have to do low-speed control in software. With good software and differentials, this could be a good rock-crawler. Can you pull a stump with this thing? They should be able to do this, assuming they're using 3-phase motors like everybody else today.
Providing 120VAC power out is a nice feature. They don't say much about charging. It should carry a charger that can charge from 120/240VAC, so you could charge slowly from any power outlet if you have to. Or another Bollinger. You'd have a big charger at home base, but opportunistic charging is a necessity when you're far from charging stations.
Really needs air bags, and fewer sharp edges in the passenger compartment. Off-road that thing and you'll cut yourself on the door handles. Once they find a real manufacturer, they can clean up the interior.
Does it have a heater? That's a big problem with electrics, especially ones like this with no insulation.
I simply can't connect with Cybertruck for some reason. It feels like everything a truck should not be.
Take the wonderful off-road footage they showed. How did they handle charging? Did they tow a bunch of Cybertrucks to the site, get them town to where they just had enough power to get back on the flatbed an then tow them back?
Having driven trucks in the middle of nowhere, well, charging is very important. You can carry a couple of ten or twenty gallon cans in the back and get hundreds of miles of additional range.
There are thousands of products designed to "interface" with standard trucks. Not sure how that ecosystem applies to Cybertruck.
Beyond this, the stainless body is interesting. However, repairs of any kind are going to be massively expensive. My guess is full panels will have to be replaced. In general terms, a quick look at reports of repairs for these types of vehicles can be seriously expensive.
Finally, unlike a conventional truck, if you own one of these you will, at some point in time, experience the decidedly non-trivial cost of having to replace the battery. The terminal cost of conventional trucks approaches an asymptote in the low thousands of dollars. With Cybertruck that number will be in the mid tens of thousands. Today, replacing a batter on a Tesla car can cost as much as $25K.
If the purchase of a Cybertruck is because it looks good, different, unique, etc. Then, sure, why not, it isn't different from buying an expensive Italian sports car. As a practical working truck, not sure.
I must admit I enjoy seeing Cybertrucks in the wild. They are fugly, but not as fugly in-person as I expected. Putting the development resources into a cheaper Model 2 would almost certainly been a better investment for the company though. Cybertrucks will never sell in enough volume to affect Tesla's bottom line positively.
I wonder how many people reserved near the announcement; lots of time for personal and global situations to have changed in the last five years.
They also look to have overpromised a bit. When Cybertruck was announced the base model was $39,900 and Elon suggested incentives could bring it even lower [0]. The three tiers were $40/50/70k, then it launched at $61/80/100k. To be fair, $40k in 2019 is around $48k today but that's still a 25% price increase.
Also, the high-end version was initially presented as having 500 mile range and 14000lb towing capacity, but now it's 320 mile range and 11000lb capacity. (edit: sibling comment mentioned this already)
I have a hunch this is part of the reason why Tesla delayed the Cybertruck but is full steam ahead with the Tesla Semi. Commercial fleet buyers (PepsiCo/Frito Lay taking delivery first) have straightforward requirements and more control over where chargers can be sited. They also have no problem paying $180k per unit (with a potential $40k federal tax credit per) considering their capital resources/leasing and the petroleum cost savings. They are not buying big batteries that then sit in a garage; those vehicles will be utilized as much as possible.
The consumer market willing to pay such costs is much, much smaller for an EV garage queen that only tows a few times a year. If you tow often, at some point, you’ll just buy the Semi (as I see diesel costs in my area are currently running $5/gallon, and F250 fuel tanks range in size from 34 to 43 gallons).
I really like the Bollinger. For the same reasons as you. I'd buy it instead of the Cybertruck if it was price competitive. But I'm not going to pay $50k more just to avoid the smarts of a Cybertruck.
Bollinger trucks are also Class 3 vehicles, which means they don't have to pass the same crash tests a more mass market truck like an F-150 does. I've actually seen speculation Tesla may be planning the same trick with Cybertruck, which is fine, but that means you can't expect cyber truck to be built in Model 3 or Y volumes.
Tesla has clearly built in a pretty steep decline in battery costs, otherwise the pricing they announced simply isn't possible. Tesla is in a pretty good position to make predictions about future battery costs, but it's likely their lower costs will mean lower costs for everyone. Since there is no real date for cybertruck yet, the costs for other EV trucks may be quite a bit lower by the time cybertruck actually arrives.
There is a reason cars and trucks have body panels and bumpers that are not structural. With the structure exposed I'd be worried about minor damage activating the crumple zones and writing off the vehicle. Even the best body shops are not equipped to work on stainless steel. If Tesla is pulling the Class 3 trick cybertruck may not have crumple zones or other safety features to worry about, but that's a whole other problem if people are planning on making it their daily, family vehicle.
I really like the vehicles that Tesla actually builds and sells. They are getting better and better at running a production line and the Model Y teardown looks great. I'm less keen on the Tesla hype machine on unreleased things like roadster and cybertruck. Announcing pricing years in advance on unreleased cars results in needing to employ underhanded tricks like selling a $35,000 off-book model 3 you need to know a special process to order. All that to satisfy a commitment you made long before engineering was done, bill of materials complete, and a production line existed.
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