Cybertruck Black
On November 4th, Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen was spotted driving around Southern California and stopping into at least one event in a Cybertruck with a new type of visual mod - a matte black wrap.
Throughout this year we have seen Tesla staff driving around Cybertrucks with wraps of various designs - mostly different types of camo, but also some very interesting graffiti-inspired looks, and of course the joke wraps made to look like competitor trucks like the Ford F150 Lightning - but matte black is eye-catching in a different way.
It’s certainly a different look from the usual stainless-steel design, but fans of the Cybertruck have been speculating about an all-black paint job or wrap for quite some time now - not least of which because von Holtzhausen himself has remarked that early renders of the vehicle were done up in a black finish to showcase some variation on the look.
And it definitely looks interesting.
The matte black finish has the appeal of tacti-cool accessories - and frankly coating the Cybertruck in this sort of wrap makes it look a lot more like something Batman would drive. It definitely cuts down on the glare that Tesla engineers have been busy trying to eliminate from the stainless steel finish, and it makes the lights stand out just a little more aggressively.
Jokes aside, it really gives the Cybertruck a more sleek appearance - not to mention that a black wrap would be a much better canvas for that graffiti-style pinstriping and decal work we saw about a month ago.
Unfortunately not everyone was so impressed with the new fit, as some attendees of the weekend event noticed that not only was the black wrap applied sloppily - with bubbles and wrinkles in several noticeable places - the Cybertruck von Holtzhausen chose to drive around in was clearly not made to typical Tesla standards.
Fenders were hanging at odd angles, the back bumper was misaligned, and attendees reported seeing gaps in the body panels that you could stick a whole finger through.
Now, there could be a number of reason why this particular Cybertruck looked like this, but the simplest answer is just that von Holtzhausen was excited to show off the matte-black wrap, had it hastily applied to an older prototype, and drove off to stoke some local hype.
And considering this is really the first instance of visibly shoddy workmanship on a Cybertruck we’ve heard of so far, it’s more likely to be that case, than anything more alarming. Tesla didn’t get to the top of the EV market by delivering shoddy products.
In addition to the cool new wrap, von Holtzhausen reportedly also showed off a bit of the all-wheel steering capabilities of the truck - something we can see the Cybertruck team testing in this video from Joe Tegtmeyer on November 1st.
The ability to steer with both front and rear wheels and “Crab Drive” is a big feature for the Cybertruck, and could help get the vehicle out of some tighter spots - but we haven’t really seen any clear testing of this ability for some time before Joe dropped this video on us. Both this video and von Holtzhausen’s weekend drive are sightings that we’ve gotten used to over the past couple of months in the runup to Cybertruck’s first delivery date - which is expected to be November 30th.
But while most people are excited, there have been some rumblings amongst the community ever since Tesla’s Q3 earnings call where CEO Elon Musk tempered the expectations of some investors by updating them on the facts of Cybertruck’s ramp up - stating that it might take some time to actually build up to any sort of financially stable production rate.
But on a recent podcast aired on October 31st, Elon said that, “We’re aiming to make about 200,000 a year at volume production,”
Which is roughly in line with his previous statements about the current capabilities of the GigaTexas facility where the Cybertruck is going to be produced. The ramp up won’t be as quick as Tesla would like due to the complexity of the vehicle and the difficulty of the manufacturing process - Musk has been very careful to emphasize that ever since the Earnings Call.
But the hope is that in 12 to 18 months, Tesla will have hit volume production, and the company can then look forwards to increasing that even more. Back in May during the annual shareholders meeting, Elon mentioned that Tesla would be attempting to get the production of Cybertruck to anywhere between 250,000, and 500,000 units per year.
That’s not much more than the initial ramp up will be able to make, so it looks like Tesla should be able to hit those goals.
More importantly though, it seems that people are just getting ready to get their hands on a Cybertruck, and play with the options - like this new matte-black wrap. There’s been no word on when exactly these new options will be available, but it is good to see Tesla showing them off so confidently - maybe they’ll have a few options ready by the end of November?