After months without a sighting, the Tesla Cybertruck made an appearance last week in Palo Alto, California. What made the spotting exciting was that it was the latest beta production build and was sporting one obvious new feature – updated side mirrors.
Elon Musk later confirmed in a reply to Drive Tesla on Twitter that this was indeed the latest build (and that the side mirrors are still going to be removable), adding that it will still undergo some tweaks before reaching its final production form. One of those changes will be to the tailgate of the electric truck.
In earlier prototype builds the tailgate featured a full length red light bar, with brake lights on either end and a small section in the middle. However on this latest build that feature was seemingly missing, with just the two small lights on either end remaining. Many fans were quick to notice the change, and wondered why the full length light had been removed.
One of those fans was Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV), who said on Twitter to Musk that the red light bar looked 100 times better, sharing a comparison picture between the two Cybertrucks. Musk replied to the tweet, confirming that while it was absent from this build the feature will make it on to the production version. “Production will have red light bar,” Musk said.
Production will have red light bar
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2023
The change should happen fairly soon as the Cybertruck is expected to enter production later this summer. During the recent Q4 2022 earnings call that timeline was reiterated by Musk, but he stressed that the start of production was not as important as mass production. According to Musk that will happen in 2024.
The Cybertruck will be built at Giga Texas, and the factory has been preparing for the start of production for some time. The company has been publishing numerous job postings and we have seen several important piece of the Cybertruck production puzzle being installed at Giga Texas, like the 9,000 ton Giga Press. Also during the Q4 2022 earnings call it was confirmed by Lars Moravy, vice president of vehicle engineering, that Cybertruck production lines are currently being installed at the factory.
