Musk On Affordable Electric Truck: Extremely Hard For Tesla, Near Impossible For Others

Tesla's boss highlights the challenges despite "much greater economies of scale & better technology."

By: Mark Kane

Mar 4, 2022 at 5:36am ET

Add InsideEVs as a preferred source in Google

Comment

Tesla's CEO Elon Musk responded to a tweet related to pricing of upcoming electric vehicles, specifically the Tesla Cybertruck.

He wrote that the company's primary challenge is affordability, because "Creating an expensive truck is relatively easy."

"Our primary challenge is affordability. Creating an expensive truck is relatively easy."

He hasn't specified a certain price level and there is no pricing available for the Tesla Cybertruck, but we can safely assume that Tesla would like to be below vehicles like the GMC Hummer EV Pickup (Edition 1 starts at about $110,000).

Very interesting is the second part of the tweet, which says that introducing an affordable product is extremely hard for Tesla, despite its "greater economies of scale & better technology."

In Elon Musk's opinion, for other manufacturers, an affordable EV product is "damn near impossible."

"If it is extremely hard to do so for Tesla, despite our much greater economies of scale & better technology, then it is damn near impossible for others."

What do you think?

View

Comments

While many people might focus on what Tesla can or can't do, Musk's answer could also be a bit worrying. It basically means that it's extremely hard to achieve affordability with trucks, which is why we see many expensive electric pickup trucks, but few with more reasonable price tags.

Just recently, Stellantis' CEO Carlos Tavares complained about the electrification costs, pointing out that battery-electric car production is 40-50% more costly than conventional counterparts. Stellantis seeks solutions on how not to transfer those costs to consumers.