Pimping the Cybertruck

Pimping the Cybertruck

Tesla sales continue to fall. Revenues have fallen 23 percent since the start of the year and the company just reported a fall in profits of sixteen percent. The left is gleeful that the market is putting it to Elon Musk who quite honestly is just plain weird – like many geniuses. But the entire EV market is down. Used EVs are down around 5% from last year while used internal combustion vehicle prices are up 5.2%. Sounds like EVs are running out of gas. 

Speaking of EVs, Lucid the EV that gets all the raves from the car magazines is suing my home state of Georgia to be able to sell direct to the customer. Seems like in Georgia, new cars can only be sold by a dealership. A few years ago the state did a special carve out for Tesla. Now Lucid wants one too. I guess the law exists to protect dealers from competition from the internet. Suppose you could go online to buy your car and have it delivered to you, wouldn’t that imperil dealerships? But doesn’t that just apply to cars that have existing dealerships? Consider a startup like Lucid with no dealerships. In order to sell cars in Georgia, they would have to establish dealerships which would be timely and costly. Tesla does not have dealerships. Rather they have showrooms where one can look at models, order a car, buy one on the lot, or pick up a car. Maybe Lucid will do the same. But for now they just want to be able to sell a car direct to the consumer. Seems to me that not allowing Lucid to do so is in constraint of trade. 

Go to any Tesla showroom and look at all the cybertrucks sitting on the lot. Clearly a bust. Sales are down 50 percent from the same period last year. The woes of the cybertruck are well documented. There has been a recall of all 2024 and 2025 models. The stainless steel panels may delaminate at the adhesive joint causing the panels to separate from the vehicle. The doors don’t often align. There are warnings from the high voltage system, critical steering issues, system malfunctions, loss of “system redundancy”, vehicles can suddenly lose electrical power, steering and propulsion and drivers may be unable to apply the parking brake. There were also alerts for degraded adaptive drive control plus automatically disabled traction, lane departure avoidance, stability controls, degraded adaptive drivee control plus automatically disabled traction, lane departure avoidance, stability controls and door latches that don’t work.

Also, the vehicle just looks weird. I know Musk likes being different but maybe the cybertruck which looks anything but a truck is just too off putting. I wonder what is the cargo capacity in its hidden truck bed. I did see an article in which a cybertruck was towing a 7.000 pound Airstream. The truck had a range of 137 miles. Not ideal unless you just want to take short trips or make a lot of stops on longer ones.

Clearly it is time for Musk to spin off Tesla and sell his car company to a company that knows how to make cars. Musk seems more interested in Space X and trying to get his self-driving technology to work. He is late to the game. Waymo seems to be making a better product. Musk’s efforts have resulted in more accidents and videos show his robotaxis braking suddenly or going straight through an intersection from a turning lane and driving down the wrong side of the road. One observer said “The system has always had highly erratic performance, working really well a lot of the time but frequently making random and inconsistent but dangerous errors. This is not a system that should be carrying members of the public or being tested on public roads without trained test drivers behind the wheel.” Tesla’s Full Self-Driving function is being investigated by the Feds. There have been issues as to how the function has responded in low-visibility conditions causing several accidents, including one that was fatal. Surely, Musk’s dustup with the president doesn’t have any relation to the increased scrutiny of Federal authorities – right?

 Despite the problems with its self driving software, Tesla is offering the $12,000 option free with a purchase of a new cybertruck. Some car magazines call this an act of desperation. Maybe that will induce some people to buy the weird looking truck but I have another idea. What to do about the ugliness of the cybertruck? I wrote about pimping a Nissan Leaf to sell it to the brothers. Well what about pimping the cybertruck? Why not offer a free makeover to new customers? Maybe potential buyers are not attracted to the silver metal look. I don’t know about you but I would not want to have a vehicle that looks exactly like all the others. The silver is difficult to paint but Tesla does offer a color wrap for around $8,000. Remember the show “Pimp My Ride” where you could get your car’s looks upgraded? Well how about Musk offering to pimp your cybertruck for free by giving away your choice of a color wrap? Maybe if EVs weren’t so ugly then sales would improve. Why not try it with the cybertruck?