To the chagrin of more than one million Cybertruck reservation holders, CEO Elon Musk revealed in an internal Tesla meeting last month that production of the electric truck won’t begin until late 2022.
During the company’s 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders yesterday, Musk provided more details on the reasons for the delay, and they’re not that surprising.
According to Musk, the biggest reason is the supply chain shortages that have affected the entire auto industry. He explained that even if the company had another five vehicles in their lineup, they would not have been able to build any more cars than they have in 2021 due to the shortages.
It was also clarified that the shortage doesn’t just apply to semiconductors.
“This year has been just a constant struggle with parts supply. So, just to be clear, if we had like five extra products, we would not change our vehicle output at all, because we were just basically limited by multiple supply chain shortages, like, so many of so many types, not just chips. There were lots of supply chain shortages.
So, it really wouldn’t matter if we had like the Semi or Cybertruck or anything, we just wouldn’t be able to make it.”
Musk went on to say production will “most likely” begin at Giga Texas in late 2022, and reach volume production in 2023, the same timeline he provided during the meeting last month.
Given the huge backlog of orders Tesla needs to get through, and the fact that vehicles are typically prioritized for U.S. customers, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the first Cybertrucks arrive in Canada in late 2023 or even early 2024.
You can watch the full answer in the video below.
