from Hacker News

Tesla's Cybertruck is outselling almost every other EV in the US

by jdenquin on 10/25/24, 7:29 PM with 393 comments

  • by sashank_1509 on 10/25/24, 8:28 PM

    The weird thing I’ve seen is in almost all the online forums I visit, like Reddit, YouTube comment sections, parts of twitter, hacker news, the cybertruck is universally panned. Yet when I drove a cybertruck, the number of onlookers who approached me inquiring about the car with excitement is unmatched with even a Lamborghini that I once rented. Shows how much of a bubble the internet alone is. MKBHD got the ratio’s right in his review, 75% of all approaching population are excited about the car and when asked to guess its price, they all wildly overestimate it, guessing close to a million than a 100k. This car is probably a hit, it would be a bigger hit if it were a gas car, it’s low range and really low range when towing make it impractical for any actual truck work.

  • by PoignardAzur on 10/26/24, 11:15 PM

    There was a Cybertruck at the Paris Games Week (there was a Tesla corner in the con for some reason). That was my first time seeing one in person.

    The most striking thing was how tall it was. Half the kids attending the PGW were smaller than its front bumper. I hope these things never, ever get allowed in France.

  • by wffurr on 10/25/24, 8:25 PM

    https://archive.is/pBDXs

    Relevant snippet:

    "Tesla sold almost 17,000 Cybertrucks in the third quarter, according to Cox estimates, making it the third most popular EV in the US during the period. The only other EVs that sold better were the Tesla Model 3 and Y.

    So far in 2024, more than 28,000 Cybertrucks have been sold. That's more than Ford's F-150 Lightning, Rivian's R1T, and Chevy's Silverado EV, Cox data shows."

  • by fxtentacle on 10/27/24, 9:24 AM

    The headline is pretty misleading.

    From the article: "Tesla sold almost 17,000 Cybertrucks in the third quarter"

    and I believe the total sales volume for last quarter was 400k EVs in the US and about 3.5mio worldwide.

    That means Cybertruck sales were like 2-3% of total sales in the US and <0.5% worldwide.

  • by shreezus on 10/25/24, 8:21 PM

    I see multiple Cybertrucks every day driving around LA.

    I'll admit the design has grown on me, and we need more mainstream vehicles challenging the boring design "norms".

    I would love to see a cross between the Model Y and Cybertruck in the future.

  • by RollAHardSix on 10/25/24, 8:52 PM

    My girlfriend owns one so to share our experience, the cybertruck is an unreliable POS. She's had it three, four months now & we have had it in the shop for suspension repair, an ECU computer which fried itself at a charging station (2k), a coolant leak part replacement from the cyberbeast rear engine (1400), the passenger window falling inside the door after the wire used in the gear window retraction snapped or tangled in the gears (450). We have gone through something like 8-10 tires and rims because they can't handle a pothole, or slice themselves after some tech put the wheel cover on wrong (tried leaving it off but a tire caught debris and was punctured that way too).

    She had about two or three tires slashed or had the air nozzle cut off and sentry mode didn't catch anything except the back of the persons head. The self-driving jerked itself into a barricade on the interstate when someone cut her off, she wasn't able to stop it from doing so fast enough, it was all just faster then her reaction time (thankfully the other driver admitted fault but if they had contested I wouldn't put my faith in self-driving laws to side on a drivers side in a dispute). We have put roughly 10k into this truck for service.

    We bought the truck because she lives in the mountains, she drives 200 miles a day for work if not more 5 days a week (regularly up at 4am on the road at 6am and home around 7pm - 9pm depending), and its probably the biggest purchase regret of our lives.

    She needed a vehicle and I just spent 15k on a used RAV, we made the decision for her to get the truck because self-driving sounded very exciting (its all 'corporate puffery' now though), and her being in the mountains left us looking at roughly 80k vehicles anyway so we figured let's take a chance on the truck and self-driving. I mean most cars you get a good five years out them anyway right? Turns out that paint it black tesla ad was even faked, and my personal opinion is Tesla used the reservations to get this news piece.

    I truly don't see the cybertruck as being desirable for the average American, I believe it's a novelty which will die once Teslas early adopter advantage for self-driving dies up. I believe it should. We are currently looking to buy her a 8k commuter beater for local 60 - 120 mile work days and using the cybertruck just for the work out of state. We'd sell the truck but its depreciated so much and she still travels out of state once or twice a month minimum and all over the place once there so we still want something electric for those trips. We would sell it if I had about another 50k in the bank to be comfortable with taking the quick loss from doing so, we still might once the relatives house sells. Don't buy Tesla, that's my advice. We never will again.

  • by spaceman_2020 on 10/25/24, 8:38 PM

    Its the design.

    The memefication of reality is happening right under our eyes, and the Cybertruck is the perfect vehicle for it.

    Expect more such memetic design across everything. From people to products, the meme is the atomic unit of attention. Beauty is a secondary goal; to sprout memes is how you win in twenty twenty four - and beyond.

  • by caycep on 10/25/24, 8:09 PM

    tbh I continue to say the i3 scale/weight was what mass market EV transportation should have been designed towards (and more efforts focused on public trans than single/small n occupant cars). Societal/environmental cost of 6000-7000 lb behemoths erase any emissions gains from going EV.

  • by mikestew on 10/25/24, 7:47 PM

  • by tmtvl on 10/25/24, 8:02 PM

    Isn't the Cybertruck that Mad Max looking thing that looks like it will shear you clean in two if it hits you? I'm surprised that's street legal.

  • by Terr_ on 10/25/24, 8:16 PM

    This kind of summary is tricky because the answer can depend on the bucketing that occurs from the spread of models or manufacturers.

    The linked Kelly Blue Book report tables are probably more-useful, and state that in Q3, 4.8% of the vehicles sold were Cybertrucks.

    I'm not familiar with pickup-truck-adjacent vehicles, but I notice the "Ford F-150 Lightning" was 2.1%, and the "GMC Hummer Truck / SUV" was 1.2%.

  • by Spivak on 10/25/24, 7:52 PM

    I think the take-away from this is that EV market in the US is a long-ways away from economy cars when the #3 selling car is $100k.

    You can't even find middling used EVs for sub $20k. They're all just Chevy Bolts people were desperate to unload.

  • by GMoromisato on 10/25/24, 8:24 PM

    Anecdata, but in the Bay Area I see a Cybertruck almost every time I go out. At the beginning of the year it was once per month. Now there are two or three Cybertruck owners in my immediate neighborhood.

    I don't like the look, personally, but my kids love it.

  • by mark242 on 10/25/24, 8:12 PM

    16 thousand Cybertrucks sold in Q3.

    To compare, 3.9 million cars sold in Q3.

  • by gmerc on 10/27/24, 8:57 AM

    This clearly has nothing to do with running down the preorder list which has now been exhausted and had a less than 10% claim rate.

    Those numbers are going to crater hard in the coming months

  • by nimbius on 10/25/24, 8:28 PM

    The reason theyre selling is likely due to a US small business tax loophole that allows you to write off things like range rovers and escalades as a business expense. coupled with US electric vehicle incentives state and federal, and its a pretty sweet deal on the most electric SUV per weight and length you can buy.

    Honestly I fully expect to see these things crisping in the sunlit parking lot of a predatory auto lender in about five years, or rolling through the rough part of town on an 84 month co-signed auto loan with liability insurance only, wagon wheels, a lord beerus wrap and aftermarket stereo.

    Like Range Rovers and Hummers they will be gobbled up by people who (with petite-bourgeoise socialism) can afford to buy the vehicle, but not maintain it. And if Youtube is any judge of build quality, this vehicle will start to fall apart the minute it exits the factory floor.

  • by jordanpg on 10/25/24, 8:38 PM

    I would love to see the party registration breakdown of these recent buys.

    It would be wonderful irony if suddenly buying EVs has become trendy among the right-leaning crowd.

  • by roland35 on 10/25/24, 7:51 PM

    Shocking if true! I see way more model ys, mustang Mach es, rivians, ev6s, well pretty much everything than cybertrucks...

  • by spacechild1 on 10/27/24, 5:26 PM

    This serioualy reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer gets to design a car. I don't understand how anyone can drive this thing unironically.

  • by formvoltron on 10/25/24, 8:10 PM

    Cybertruck reminds me of the Moon Patrol buggy.

  • by robomartin on 10/29/24, 12:39 AM

    Here in Los Angeles we have seen dozens of them. Our reaction is consistent: It's ugly and ridiculous. To my wife the design reminds her of a roll-top garbage can of some sort.

    My kids probably had the best comment: If Tesla had designed a real truck they would have sold millions.

    Keep in mind this is the comment of teenagers who don't have a sense of the size and scale of markets. The point, however, should not be missed: There was an opportunity to enter a truck into the truck market, not an Ikea trash can on wheels.

    Sometimes it is a good idea to listen to kids. I remember when one of Apple's original guiding principles of OS design was to make the computers usable by anyone, even young kids. A kid, in this case, does not see the utility of a truck that does not seem to fit the "form and function" of a truck, like an F150 or variants by other manufacturers.

  • by standardUser on 10/26/24, 12:01 AM

    Here's the thing about the Cybertruck, if you give it a decent paint job it actually looks kind of amazing...

    https://pristineautospa.com/the-benefits-and-advantages-of-c...

    It's the unfinished metal look that absolutely baffles me.

  • by MostlyStable on 10/25/24, 8:37 PM

    It is honestly baffling to me how many people have such strong opinions on the Cyber Truck. I don't personally like the aesthetic, but the majority of the reason I wouldn't get one is that I really don't like Teslas interior design/control scheme (which, much like apple, has lead a lot of manufacturers to copy them). I hate the 100% touch screen thing that they have decided on. But like...also, I just won't buy one. The fact that the car isn't my ideal one does not require me to despise it, or really care about it at all. There are a lot of cars that I don't like for one reason or another.

    I mean, I guess I do get it: politics have poisoned people's brains and the fact that they don't like Musk's politics means that they have to have extremely strong opinions on everything connected to him, but it just doesn't seem worth the emotional effort.

    And while I personally wouldn't ever buy one, it also is not surprising to me at all that a lot of people are buying them. I have no illusion that my personal tastes reflect the broader tastes of the car-buying public (if they did, then I would find it much easier to find a car that conforms to my preferences).

  • by apercu on 10/25/24, 8:36 PM

    Can you get insurance for them?

  • by mikestew on 10/25/24, 7:51 PM

    My witty retort would have been, “yeah, well, people bought the Pontiac Aztek, too.”, except Tesla has sold almost as many Cybertrucks in the 3rd quarter as Pontiac sold Azteks in an entire peak sales year.

  • by nothercastle on 10/30/24, 4:14 PM

    It’s popular for the same reason the pt cruiser was cool right up until it wasn’t

  • by mensetmanusman on 10/27/24, 3:23 AM

    Some small business owners are saving $10k annually with electricity costs at the rate they are using them.

  • by xnx on 10/25/24, 7:59 PM

    Alternate headline: Tesla sales dip below 50% of all EV sales.

    Source: https://www.coxautoinc.com/market-insights/q3-2024-ev-sales/

  • by foogazi on 10/26/24, 11:02 PM

    Personally when I see them in person I think they look dumb and ridiculous. But I have never driven it. I do like all other current Teslas but wouldn’t buy one because Elon

    But I was driving with a non-tech, non-online friend and she blurted out “Wow what an ugly car”, I looked over and it was a cybertruck - so I felt validate in my views

  • by lifestyleguru on 10/28/24, 2:44 AM

    Stop these awful huge heavy monstrosities, there is no place for them in the cities. Why are you doing this to us? Sell them all to warlords in Caucasus.

  • by yumraj on 10/25/24, 8:15 PM

    That thing is a monstrosity.

    This to me implies that EVs have peaked and only the market for vanity vehicles remains at this time

    Edit: I also have a suspicion that this is primarily due to them filling all the preorders. It’d be good to see a breakdown as to how many new orders people are placing after seeing this POS in real life.