Tesla says its first production Cybertruck electric pickup has rolled off the assembly line, nearly two years behind the original schedule.
The company tweeted a photo on Saturday showing scores of workers in helmets and yellow vests surrounding the truck.
“First Cybertruck built at Giga Texas!” Tesla tweeted, including a cowboy hat-wearing emoji. Owner Elon Musk retweeted the post.
Musk unveiled the truck in late 2019, and Tesla had said production would start in late 2021, although the company has since cautioned that production would begin slowly and in smaller numbers than Tesla's other vehicles.
With its wedge shape and stainless-steel body — which Tesla calls the exoskeleton — the Cybertruck looks nothing like a traditional pickup. Some analysts have panned it as a niche product that won't have broad appeal.
Musk said in April that the company expected to deliver the first truck probably in the July-through-September quarter. He said that as with other new products, production would start slowly and then speed up.
“It takes time to get the manufacturing line going,” he said, “and this is really a very radical product. It’s not made in the way that other cars are made. So let’s see.”
The truck's 2019 unveiling veered off course when a window that was touted as unbreakable was spider-cracked when hit by a big metal ball, which prompted an expletive from Musk.
Tesla originally said it would make three versions of the truck, ranging from about $40,000 to $70,000. Later the company removed prices from the page where customers can decide whether to plunk down $100 and place an order.
Competitors have rushed into the electric truck market, including the Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian Automotive's R1T. Both look like conventional pickups.
Tesla is scheduled to report second-quarter financial results on July 19.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
