Tesla is planning to deliver 375k units of the Cybertruck annually
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Tesla is now on track to fulfill its commitment to deliver the much-anticipated Cybertruck. According to recent reports by Electrek, the company has shared its production targets and prototype timing with its suppliers, instilling confidence that deliveries will commence by the end of the third quarter in 2023.
From Delayed Launch to Steady Progress
In its communication with suppliers, Tesla revealed a plan to build a staggering 375,000 units of Cybertrucks annually. This figure is a significant leap from Musk's estimate of around 250,000 units per year. However, it's important to note that Tesla will likely reach this production milestone in 2024, once production has ramped up.
Tesla first pulled the covers off the Cybertruck in 2019, with original plans to hit the market in 2021. However, the global pandemic and supply chain disruptions led to multiple postponements. Despite these setbacks, recent updates from CEO Elon Musk show a good progression toward mass production of this futuristic pickup truck.
The Importance of Release Candidates
As per the internal timeline, the first release candidates for the Cybertruck, which are near-final vehicle versions, are slated for August 2023. These candidates represent the last development stage before mass production begins. This critical milestone aligns well with the projected delivery event scheduled for September.
Despite these updates, 1.5 million reservation holders still don't know about the final specs and pricing of the Cybertruck. According to Musk, these details will only be disclosed during the upcoming delivery event.
Tesla's Challenges and Ambitions
From engineering to design, the Cybertruck has been one of the most challenging vehicles for Tesla. Yet, the company's aggressive annual production target reflects its strong ambition to penetrate the electric pickup truck market. As the Cybertruck moves from prototype to production, Tesla is clearly in the driver's seat to revolutionize this segment.
In the recent Investor Day, the latest Cybertruck prototypes were spotted with new features, including a yoke steering wheel design. These design modifications, validated by Musk and Tesla's Chief Vehicle Designer Franz von Holzhausen, provide further evidence that production is imminent.
In the face of high anticipation and industry scrutiny, Tesla is pushing full steam ahead with its Cybertruck program, "Project Everest." The production target of 375,000 units and the expected arrival of release candidates this August paint a promising picture for Tesla's entry into the electric pickup market. With Tesla's record of transforming the EV space, the Cybertruck's launch will undoubtedly be a landmark event in automotive history.
Tesla’s FSD V13.2.2 continues its rollout to the HW4 fleet, now complete with holiday goodness that makes it available to all HW4 vehicles. While FSD V13 is capable of some incredible feats, such as three-point turns, there are some additional capabilities Tesla hasn’t talked about yet.
Emergency Vehicle Handling
First up, better handling for emergency vehicles. While Tesla works on gathering audio data to make emergency vehicle detection even better, Tesla improved how it handles emergency vehicles with FSD V13.
FSD previously had issues handling emergency vehicles - sometimes pulling over and stopping on V12, other times requiring driver intervention to do the job. This led to lots of user interventions when an emergency vehicle was detected. Ensuring you’re out of the way of an ambulance can save precious seconds - which is enough to save lives.
V13 now does a much better job of pulling overly safely to the side for emergency vehicles. Check out the video below of FSD pulling the vehicle over to the side of the road.
Another issue that FSD had trouble handling previously was school buses. Previously, FSD would ignore the stop sign and flashing lights and attempt to drive around the bus.
School buses often required driver intervention, but it seems Tesla has dedicated time to training FSD V13 to handle them properly now. Check out this post of FSD now successfully stopping and waiting for a school bus.
FSD v13 stopped for a school bus! Waited till the stop sign folded in and then proceeded forward! pic.twitter.com/ReU4enxnNB
Reduced speed zones, including school zones, have had mediocre handling by FSD in previous versions. Now, some initial speed zone handling has arrived in V13.2. However, while it does handle some speed zones with blinking signs, it doesn’t necessarily handle all speed zones. For now, while Supervising, drivers will need to make sure their vehicles don’t exceed the speed limit, especially in school zones. In the meantime, look at this speed video of the vehicle handling a speed zone with FSD V13.
Slightly better video of FSD V13 responding appropriately to flashing yellow lights indicating it’s temporarily a 20mph zone. It didn’t exceed 25 despite being set to a much higher max speed
As part of V13, Tesla included some interesting features addressing hardware - namely camera cleaning, The initial changelog was slightly vague: “Improved Camera Cleaning” and nothing else.
It turns out this actually refers to the camera heating elements around the vehicle, including those around the B-Pillar. According to FSD engineer Yun-Ta Tsai, this is far more complex than just heating the camera up.
The system integration team does a lot of energy and thermal optimization across the entire vehicle, to optimize autonomy.
This is just one example. The heating is actually more complex than just heating it up.
Yes, real world AI cares about these things, a lot!
The Cybertruck features an automatic tonneau that lets you lock in valuables. It rolls back and forth along a track and is somewhat water-resistant. Tesla never said that the tonneau would be waterproof, but many owners have encountered a lot of water flowing into their tonneau covers.
The place where the glass roof meets the plastic strip - the aero flap- seems to be the location where most of the water gets in, and this has been noted by many as a constant source of leaks - while the rest of the bed stays mostly dry.
Tesla has attempted to fix this by adding additional slats to the tonneau, which ensures that there are slats left over underneath the aero cover, thereby providing some additional water resistance. However, it looks like they’re doing more now to prevent these leaks.
New Rubber Seals
Tesla intends to issue a service code - the term they use for service bulletins to fix common problems - for this particular issue. This service code will include the removal of the old aero flap and the installation of a new aero flap that has additional rubber seals - similar to the ones used on windows. Thanks to theMONK11 on Reddit for catching this and providing the photo.
The service code hasn’t gone live yet, so it looks like Tesla is only testing this new part for owners who have complained about excessive water intrusion. We’ll likely see this new flap, with the additional rubber seals, become a standard part on newly built trucks to resolve this issue.
For everyone else, you’ll need to put in a service ticket with Tesla, but we would recommend waiting a few weeks before doing so. That will give them time to finalize the process and have the new part sent around to service centers across North America. Given that this isn’t a critical issue to the functionality of the vehicle, Tesla likely will not issue a recall for this - so it’ll be up to owners to create a service ticket and have the new applique installed.
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