Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the company conducted “zero” consumer research when designing its upcoming Cybertruck.
He says he doesn’t pay attention to competitors or know anything about other electric vehicles on the market.
And the complaint that the autopilot call is misleading to Tesla’s driving assistance system, which has been linked to a number of accidents? “Idiot.”
In a wide-ranging interview with Automotive News Publisher Jason Stein last week, the 49-year-old Musk appeared unbothered by the product-related headaches that often vex his competitors or the billions of dollars that can hinge on his declarations. At one point he made a “stream-of-consciousness guess” that Tesla will start construction on a third U.S. assembly plant in four or five years, and later he suggested the company might build a minivan before largely dismissing the idea in the next sentence.
To Musk’s credit, Tesla continues to maintain speed with the electric vehicle sales industry; she pioneered a virtual retail style that is becoming popular amid the coronavirus pandemic; and has posted 4 consecutive quarterly gains, though largely due to the sale of regulatory credits to competitors, which says it is not watching very closely. Despite many demanding production situations, and more than a few unsealed missealeds on Twitter, Tesla has increased its value, and its market capitalization doubled after Musk publicly qualified that its inventory was worth too much.
“I must be doing something right, as far as my managing style’s concerned,” Musk said. “Tesla’s worth twice as much as the rest of the U.S. auto industry combined.”
He said he hopes to continue roiling the industry by launching the Cybertruck pickup next year. Although Tesla is entering a high-stakes segment with fiercely loyal customers, Musk admitted the truck was not guided by any of the focus groups or outreach to would-be buyers that Ford, Chevrolet and Ram have relied on over the decades to hone their designs.
“Customer research?” he said, before bursting into laughter. “We just made a car we thought was awesome and looks super weird. I just wanted to make a futuristic battle tank — something that looks like it could come out of Blade Runner or Aliens or something like that but was also highly functional.”
The Cybertruck looks unlike anything available on the market. It has a sharp-edged, stainless-steel exterior and glass that’s billed as bulletproof, though two windows unexpectedly shattered when struck by a metal ball during an impromptu durability demo at the unveiling last fall.
Musk said Tesla purposely made the truck as different as possible and that he doesn’t feel any pressure for it to succeed.
“It can be a better sports car than a Porsche 911, a better truck than an F-150, and it’s armored and looks sort of kick-ass from the future. That was the goal, recognizing this could be a complete failure,” he said. “But I wasn’t super worried about that because if it turns out nobody wants to buy a weird-looking truck, we’ll build a normal truck, no problem. There’s lots of normal trucks out there that look pretty much the same; you can hardly tell the difference. And sure, we could just do some copycat truck; that’s easy. So that’s our fallback strategy.”
Musk has repeatedly taken jabs at Ford’s industry-leading F-Series pickups, at one point posting a video of the Cybertruck overpowering an F-150 in a tug-of-war stunt.
But the Cybertruck is expected to be classified as a medium-duty pickup, putting it more on par with Ford’s Super Duty or Chevrolet’s Silverado HD. Musk told Automotive News the Cybertruck would not be sold globally.
“Actually, we essentially make this truck an American kick,” he said. “The purpose is to kick as much as possible with this truck. We need it to be anything you can use to tow a boat, a horse trailer, pull tree stumps, do OFF-road and don’t.” . I don’t have to worry about scratching the paint, as there’s no paint. You can break rocks and be fine.”
Musk said at least 200,000 consumers have filed $100 refundable deposits for the Cybertruck since the company began accepting them in November. But despite the competitive beards thrown at Ford, he doesn’t necessarily seek to get a percentage of the player’s loan market established by poaching its consumers.
“We’re not looking to target anyone,” he said. “If you like Cybertruck, great. If not, yes. We’re not looking to play a marketing game. We’re just looking to create products that other people will love.”
Still, he said the Cybertruck would be ideal in places or for off-road adventures. It will come with an on-board generator, an integrated air compressor and bulletproof frame panels.
“So it’s probably useful in the apocalypse,” he says. “Things seem more apocalyptic in those days. Let me tell you, the truck you need in the apocalypse is the Cybertruck.”
Musk’s tone was clouded when asked if Tesla continues to use the autopilot call for its drive force assistance generation amid court cases that make it appear that its cars are fully autonomous. A German court ruled in July that Tesla had misled consumers and banned the company from announcing autopilot.
Several drivers died after their Teslas hit items and other vehicles, adding trucks with fireplaces and semi-trailers, while autopilot was activated. YouTube videos of drivers sleeping, reading or climbing in the back seat after the formula is activated accumulate tens of thousands of views.
Musk erified at the concept of that so-called clarification.
“Absolutely not; that’s ridiculous,” he said. “The people who misuse Autopilot, it’s not because they’re new to it and don’t understand it. The people who first use Autopilot are extremely paranoid about it. It’s not like, ‘If you just introduced a different name, I would have really treated it differently.’ If something goes wrong with Autopilot, it’s because someone is misusing it and using it directly contrary to how we’ve said it should be used.”
Musk said the name is based on the airplane technology that aids, but does not replace, pilots. Musk has said Tesla could have “full self-driving” technology available by the end of the year, but he notes that it still instructs customers to fully pay attention while Autopilot is engaged.
“It’s not like an amateur who just won the car and, based on the call, idea he would immediately accept as true with the car to drive,” he said. “It’s a stupid premise to be angry with the autopilot call. You idiot.”
Tesla faces a year of a higher festival by established automakers and start-ups looking to capture some of their marketing magic.
But electric cars remain a fraction of the entire U.S. industry, with only a 1.4% market percentage in the first part of the year, and analysts continue to sue customers.
Musk said he was surprised by the industry’s slowness in deploying desirable electric cars and seemed unaware why competing cars are not promoting in greater numbers.
“I don’t really pay much attention to this stuff,” he said. “I’m not really looking at competitors. I’m just looking at, what are we doing to make our products better and engage in self-improvement?”
However, one potential competitor who caught his attention is Rivian Automotive Inc. In July, Tesla filed a lawsuit accusing Rivian of an “alarming pattern” of robbing his workers and stealing industry secrets.
“They took a lot of tesla’s active treasures on USB sticks and computers and the like,” Musk said. “It is not good to borrow our high-value assets and for others to violate your confidentiality agreements. They do bad things, so we chase them.”
Musk, who has slept overnight at his desk and walked the factory floor to help overcome manufacturing challenges, said he thinks about succession atop Tesla but plans to continue running the automaker as long as he is able.
Aside from introducing the Cybertruck, Semi and new Roadster in the coming years, Musk said he’s considering adding a compact vehicle or a van. Longer term, he eventually would like Tesla to produce 20 million new vehicles a year. Volkswagen, the world’s largest automaker, built 10.8 million last year.
“We need to verify to make a genuine hole in sustainable shipping and sustainable energy storage,” he said. “If we could update 1% of the global fleet a year, I could say, “OK, we’re making progress on sustainable shipping.”
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