Tesla Cybertruck appears to be facing significant sales challenges. After initial hype faded, and over a million reservations turned out to be as real as unicorns, Tesla is now enabling leasing options and free upgrades to move its inventory of the futuristic pickup truck. The company’s recent silence on the Cybertruck, even omitting it from their earnings call, speaks volumes about the situation.
Tesla initially projected sales of 500,000 Cybertrucks annually and established production capacity at the Giga Texas for 250,000 units per year. After working through the initial reservation backlog with fewer than 40,000 deliveries, the automaker is now struggling to sell the remaining vehicles.
Importantly, the success of the Beetle came after the Nazis. They built the factory using confiscated union funds as well as having people pay instalments for cars which they would never get, built two or three Beetles, then switched production over to war-time production, Kübelwagen. After the war the unions effectively took over the whole plant… and also bought a couple of farms to make sure workers and families had enough to eat. Most of that is gone now but they still have their own butchery, VW part number 199 398 500 A is a saussage.