Why is the Cybertruck so Cheap?

The clever design choices Tesla made to make the Cybertruck cheap to make.

At $39 000, the Tesla Cybertruck will be sold at the same price as Tesla Model 3, a considerably smaller car. It is also extremely competitive price wise against traditional internal combustion engine trucks, which is something I think surprised a lot of people.

But is it actually cheap?

Electric cars will usually be more expensive that internal combustion engine cars because batteries are really expensive to make. That is the bulk of the cost of EVs. However, in the long run an EV will often be cheaper because electricity is significantly cheaper than gasoline and EVs require much less maintenance.

Here is the crazy thing about the Cybertruck: It does not merely have lower total cost of ownership, the sticker price in the store is also lower than the typical price for a fossilfuel powered truck. How did they pull that off?

Before answering that question, I have to address some popular claims that the Cybertruck isn’t cheap at all. When making comparisons we need to make apples to apples comparisons. It is true that the cheapest Ford F-150 — which Tesla is trying to compare themselves to — has a lower starting price.