A recent Cybertruck recall revealed that Tesla was only able to ship 3,878 electric pickup trucks since its November 2023 delivery event, meaning production of the EV has been limited. Now, as part of Tesla’s latest investor update the company has revealed that it is producing 1,000 Cybertrucks per week.
In addition to the first official update on Cybertruck production since the electric pickup’s launch, Tesla’s Vice President of Vehicle Engineering also revealed that production of the 4680 cells that power the Cybertruck increased by 18-20% in the last quarter. This has resulted in a reduction in the cost of producing EVs – the Cybertruck – that use the new cell technology.
4680 production increased about 18%, 20% more than in the fourth quarter, reaching a level higher than what is needed for Cybertruck, which is about 7 gigawatt hours per year, as we published on stay ahead of ramp for Cybertruck with cell production throughout the second quarter as we prepare the third and fourth lines of Phase 1, maintaining multiple weeks of cell inventory to ensure we are ahead of ramp. As we are ramping up, COGS continues to decline rapidly week over week, thanks to line throughput improvements and increased production volume.
Tesla expects that increased production of 4680 cells will provide such a cost reduction that, by the end of 2024, it will be cheaper for Tesla to produce these 4680 cells than to purchase nickel-based cells (NMC and NCA). This means that the Cybertruck’s production cost is expected to drop further towards the end of this year or the beginning of next.
If Tesla hopes to reach the 3 million Cybertruck reservations estimated by https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1–6OR9ECwSwZdkOtWkuslJVCyAAfQv1eJal1fdngfsk/edit 2.3 million Cybertruck reservations, it will have to dramatically increase production of 4680 cells, because, at 1,000 units per week, it will take over 38 years to fill all reservations. When the Cybertruck first launched, the production goal was 200,000 units per year, which is nearly five times higher than the 1,000 units per week that Tesla is currently celebrating.
To learn more about the development of the Cybertruck, see Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk, available on Amazon.
