In my last few moments, my head struck by the Cybertruck's sharp edge and its contents spilling open onto the crosswalk, I will contemplate this great miracle which saved rich people a few thousand dollars.

Not to mention, the stainless steel exterior will be easy to clean, since your pesky shattered skull bone won’t find any paint to scratch! You can rest easy knowing that your viscera won’t be an inconvenience.

Check out the average price of a new truck, and then their annual US sales volume (Ford’s F150 specifically). Average America is who soaks up pickup trucks, not “the rich.”

Tesla needs to compete with legacy automaker trucks if they’re to drive down the petroleum used by those fossil fuel vehicles (hence the need to keep per unit costs down). The fault for failure to prioritize pedestrian and bicyclist safety falls on federal policy makers, who could enforce these safety requirements by statute but don’t. Tangentially, it should also be wildly illegal to lift your pickup for on road use.

“Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

The F150 appears to start at 28k. Average price of a new truck in the US is 50k, but that's probably pushed up a lot by commercial purchasing. And realistically, if you think anything from Tesla is going to start at the price they claim it will start at in early marketing... well, that's optimistic.

This will be a car that at least _should_ be bought only by very well off people. I'm sure some people will take on silly debt and spend most of their annual take-home salary on a car, but that won't be the norm. Well, hopefully.

I'm just trying to help folks understand how it works outside the HN bubble. People buy trucks because it's what they feel they need (even if it isn't; that truck likely is going to be a garage queen and never leave pavement), for some it satisfies a part of their self image and ego, and a lot of folks buying them aren't fiscally responsible and buy them anyway (repo lots are a savvy way to find lightly used diesel pickups in good condition someone overspent on before a sophisticated broker/dealer acquires them and marks them up to the public).

https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/10/pickup-truck-owner-de...

> The Ford F-150 is the single most popular truck in America today and the most-popular vehicle in 44 states. It outsold the Ram pickup in 2019 by 78%.

> The average age of the new F-150 buyer is 55. It may not be too surprising that about 16% of new Ford F-150 owners are female/84% male. About three-quarters of all new Ford F-150s are purchased by white males, although Hispanic buyers account for 22% of total incremental growth of new F-150 sales from 2010 to 2017.

> Despite any TV ads you see with F-150s in a rural or country setting, the vast majority of these new trucks are in large and medium-sized cities.

> The average household income of a new Ford F-150 owner is about $82,000 per year. By comparison the median household income in the United States is $61,937.

> If that average household income sounds high, remember this! The F-150 has a base MSRP under $30,000. But, we priced a 2020 Ford F-150 Platinum Edition with all the bells & whistles and accessories for over $74,000!

All emphasis mine. This is the market environment Tesla is operating in and attempting to displace combustion pickup sales in.

Sales volume is ~1 million a year.

There's something like 50 million people that are very well off in the US.

Narrative this, narrative that.

So, contradicting my previous claims, it looks like, while the starting price is about 28k, the ASP is 47k(!), so if the average buyer earns 80k household income, yeah, they're _really_ overspending.

People with purchasing power want trucks. Sell them Cybertrucks.

So most non-fleet truck buyers are older males. They have the money and they want a truck. There is nothing wrong with that. A lot of internet commentary about the scourge of trucks is focused on them being "mall crawlers" and that few people that own trucks use them for their purpose, as if there was only one true purpose for trucks. This is, frankly, a meme that exists mostly in online auto discussion bubbles.

In terms of folks making 80k a year buying 50k trucks (the Platinum is an outlier), resale is high and interest rates are low. The larger issue on the latter point is how sustainable this is for Ford Motor Credit Company. That's a complex topic.

The biggest knock I can think of on trucks is their interior materials are not commensurate for their price. That said the F-150 Super Crew is about as comfortable an SUV as you can buy. They are very reliable. They weigh slightly more than a Toyota 4-Runner and have reasonable gas mileage. All cars are much larger than they were 15 years ago. The Super Crew is extremely safe. Trucks are much taller than previous generations, which makes them seem outlandish.

I'm not trying to refute you, just adding color as to why things are the way they are.

The automakers don’t manufacture many low end trucks for what it’s worth. Yes you can buy a fleet ready vehicle if you have a fleet, but no dealer is stocking anything in the last year except the luxury trim. Parts shortages and unprecedented demand (people buying camping trailer sand trucks due to Covid) have broken the market.

Source: myself having gone through process of buying a truck a few months ago. Looked at mid size trucks (I own acreage, making hobby farm), but only could find the 60k optioned vehicles. Ended up full-size luxury trim due to tax break possibilities plus only available stock. Pretty wild right now. Used market also hosed, almost price of new.

It’s obviously not about cost savings. Just look at the fucking thing. If they wanted costs down they would probably use lots of plastic on a smaller metal frame that didn’t require a brushed-steel finish.

It’s clearly designed the way it is for aesthetic reasons.

I doubt you'll be able to pay 45k for one of these for a while.

Based on their prior pricing history, if they're talking a 45k price point, they will _not_ be able to accomplish that.