Awesome to see BYD continue to innovate! I wish Tesla continued to push on powertrain improvements like this rather than making a triangle shaped truck.
The triangle shaped truck was used as a testbed for several innovations: 4 wheel drive (not just for parking gimmicks), size increase of gigapressed parts, first deployment of the 4680 dry process batteries, 48V for the non-traction electrical systems, Ethernet based networking for systems interconnect.
What are the reasons that truck shouldn't have entered production? I can think of a few myself (pedestrian safety, ugly, not bulletproof and shouldn't even ostensibly be, etc) but none of these reasons seem to be related to the actual technical innovations which are apparently in the truck. So where is the relevance?
> What are the reasons that truck shouldn't have entered production?
It’s selling like shit. And this was before the whole Tesla vibe shift. Instead of a leading-edge $25k EV we got a truck that can’t truck and robotaxi vapourware. Meanwhile, BYD is on its game.
>>> Tesla didn't innovate, they just made a triangle.
>> The triangle actually has several innovations, it's basically a concept car
> Concept cars usually don't enter production for a reason
Those reasons, in this case, being unrelated to the technological innovations, as far as I can tell. Correct me if I'm wrong. Tesla's problem isn't a failure to innovate, it's their leadership deciding to make stupid and impractical cars.
Musk said, on a 2023 earnings call, that he expected “the Tesla Cybertruck to sell between 250,000 and 500,000 units per year” [1]. It sold fewer than 40,000 in 2024 [2]. Tesla’s sales in 2024 weren’t 100+ P/E calibre, but they also didn’t yet reflect the sort of cratering we saw at the end of ‘24 in both Tesla sales and resale values [3].
Cybertruck flopped as a product before Tesla flopped as a brand. It’s why Tesla is throttling down their production [4].
Half of these don't really sound like innovations as much as they're firsts for Tesla themselves. 48 V systems and four-wheel steering (and drive) are not really innovative at this point.
