Tesla cancels Cybertruck in Australia and NZ after 7 years of deposits | Hacker News Reader

Tesla cancels Cybertruck in Australia and NZ after 7 years of deposits

electrek.co

98 pointsMilnerRoute82 comments

Since they have actual consumer protection laws down there, they will refund all those deposits. Either voluntarily, or by force.

what about lost interest? 7 years' worth

If those customers wanted to get interest they would have invested their money.

This comment makes apology for grifting, and a good case for bad-faith dialogue - whether to troll, to be unreasonably contrarian, or otherwise.

They gave their money for a Cybertruck, and the liquidity from those reservations was most likely use to posture company assets/P&L, earn interest in a treasury, and whatever other financial weasel techniques that the lawyers and financiers of the world's first trillionaire - Elon - have in mind to use.

Customers didn't get that, and instead had a hold on their money for reasons and means BEYOND receiving the particular commodity that they offered their money for. Forget the pro-regulation and antitrust crowds being discussed in this comment section, you'd be hard-pressed to find even a Laissez-Faire economically-right individual that sleeps well to that notion.

Those customers wanted a Cybertruck

As far as I'm aware Tesla has always been very generous with refunds for deposits, even for cars that were produced. For the model 3/y/etc they would let you cancel the deposit if you pre-ordered and just no longer felt like buying it, as long as it didn't enter production yet.

What percentage of cybertrash depositors are TSLA hodlers and musk apologists?

I'm pretty confident in saying it's far from zero.

which is even more damning because tesla stock was like 20-25 bucks a pop around when they started those pre-orders and now its 300+

tesla will screw everyone involved, but they shouldn't. those excited early birds were the primary advertising campaigners.

That's not even in question. If you read the article, Tesla already said it will refund the deposits, and give 1 year of FSD, worth AU$1788, to those who order a Model Y or Model 3.

I'm confused, Tesla FSD doesn't exist?

You have to pay for it. I believe it’s only available as a monthly subscription instead of buying it outright.

Isn't what's available now a supervised mode that can throw back controls to you and can't handle arbitrary driving?

Since when did "Full Self Driving" not mean full and not mean self?

It's more of a "where" than a "when". They call it Tesla Assisted Driving in Europe.

Other countries are more lax about what words mean.

If you purchased have a Hardware Version 3 in either a 3 or a Y, FSD does not exist in Australia.

It's in development: https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/4625/tesla-confirms-fsd-v1...

I wonder whether nore stringent pedestrian safety compliance requirements may have come into play. When I first saw that thing, that was the first thought that popped into my head.

There's some Swiss dudes claiming they're going to make the C**Truck road legal in the EU: https://werk-lab.ch/en/cybertruck . Although I'm not sure if it's just crowdsourced moneygrab or legit.

In any case the website says the steps "Familiarization with all legal requirements that apply in Switzerland and the EU for approval" and "Consultations with the Road Traffic Office and test centers to define the testing requirements".

I'm guessing the familiarization and consultation steps would've revealed to them that "Yeah, nah, this isn't going to happen..."

I don't know about Switzerland but the rules are often looser for experimental or self built vehicles.

Maybe it’s actually an attractive proposition now that they’ve all depreciated a ton in value?

CuckTruck?

Hopefully, but seeing some of the other American "trucks" hitting our pedestrians, sorry I mean hitting our roads, I wonder if anyone is really keeping that in check.

I had one of those in front of me the other day and it's not a truck, cyber or otherwise, it's a bloat car that answers to some vauge notion of space ships and laser cannons, but by all accounts is poorly built and drives like a cow and looks out of place everywhere, except possibly when stuck in gridlock when you could go up and put your hand on the tint to see what the person driving the thing looks like. if they had built a cab over, 4 door, 4x4 with a 9' deck, they would have my undivided attention, a platform that could be a minibus or cargo van, cab over flat deck, or the crew cab farm truck that I will end up building myself.

It's not a truck, it's a penis extension for people who aren't confident with the one they have.

Truly the stupidest looking car on the road. When I first saw the release I didn't mind it, but when you see one in real life it's hard to describe how pathetic they look.

150 AUD isn't that much, but this pre-order scam that Elon is doing has helped him get free cash a lot of times.

People must surely be catching on, no?

But I heard even Sam Altman gave him 50k for a roadster a couple of years ago...

As many people that catch on, the same amount are new people that havent catched on yet.

We had the phrase "a sucker is born every minute".

whats that XKCD about the 10000 people cleuing into a (new-to-them) meme every day?

https://xkcd.com/1053/

It was 7 years ago.

I hadn’t heard that they are officially selling in the UAE.

But I did hear that parallel imported cyber trucks to UAE was a substantial part of US sales.

Good for Australia and New Zeeland. But the ones that had dropped the deposit on a cyber truck can they really be allowed to handle their own economy?

People are and should be allowed to make bad financial choices, provided that they take on all of the consequences from it themselves, and not expect to be bailed out.

Farmers?

What about them?

They take on bushels of potentially generational debt to afford horribly overpriced and locked-in John Deere farming equipment to farm food when food can just be bought at the grocery store!

> generational debt

I don't know about other countries, but in the U.S., debt is not inherited.

> farm food when food can just be bought at the grocery store!

If your comment was supposed to be a joke, it fell flat.

If it falls flat, it's not a joke, it's an anthropology experiment.

Impossible to tell if sarcasm or not

The deposit was only $150 Austrailian

which is just one good burger and beer in big city there, so not even worth attention

Not sure what sort of burgers and beer you buy, but $150 generally goes just a _little_ bit further than that in my experience...

Five burgers ($15 each) and seven beers ($10 each)

standard Big Night Out, really

good barometer for "interested" but not a serious committal

Not really. Trucks are popular here and CT is one of the best vehicles on the market. Combined with its safety, efficiency, FSD, etc - it's really no brainer vehicle if you into that size.

Showing big fat middle finger to EDS sufferers is of course a cherry on a cake.

Trouble is - still quite expensive, especially for our market all while we have a little bit of Chinese competition coming up (I think only 1 decent EV ute so far).

I don’t know, selecting a vehicle by the degree to which it offends those who aren’t in the thrall of Mr. Musk sounds far closer to a form of syndromal derangement than the what you are postulating.

Reading comprehension bad?

That's cherry on top, not the main criteria.

CT is literally the worst truck on the market. Less cargo space than a Maverick and less offroad capability than a Corolla. Rusts and dents easily. Oh...and it's also a death trap for anyone inside after a collision.

I think Cybertruck's mistake ultimately boils down to the bed design - it just wasn't practical enough.

Not a truck guy by any means but I wouldn’t want any other truck’s bed after having the cybertruck’s. The motorized tonneau cover and sloped roof adds a lot of volume to what a normal truck bed provides. It’s made the difference from having exposed camping/lake gear to having all of it protected and sheltered from the elements. Now I see my friends’ truck beds and rib them a bit about how petite their storage space is.

That’s called a topper or a SUV.

Except this is an SUV with a sloped roof that loses tons of potential capacity. That said, I have seen toppers on Cybertrucks so if you need the enclosed capacity, you can get it like a regular trick. But the truth is, the Cybertruck and Rivian are not trucks first. They are lifestyle vehicles that can do some truck things.

I agree, anyone serious about a truck isn’t getting a Rivian or Cybertruck.

You could literally buy a fucking van. Much larger volume, much easier to load.

Since when is a fucking roof for storage in your car revolutionary? Its only revolutionary if you are brain-rotted in accepting pickup trucks as the norm.

We already had SUVs.

You should see the storage in my Honda Pilot.

I think it was doomed from the start being essentially the biggest thing in the Baja->Maverick-Ridgeling market segment.

I think they crossed a size threshold where they lost most of the upsides of that "not a traditional truck" market segment and gained a lot of the inconvenient downsides of the traditional half ton and larger truck market segment.

Then again, it's not like the Ford/Chevy/Rivian equivalents are flying off the shelves...

Ignoring how ugly they are, its ultimate mistake was Elon blatantly lying about final specs when he started taking pre-orders. The starting price was going to be under $40k, and the highest end model was going to be under $70k with 520 miles of range.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/21/tesla-cybertruck-unveiled.ht...

What they released cost just under $100k with 320 miles of range (which means actually like 260-270 when you don’t use Tesla’s inflated number).

At 520 miles of range you can actually consider towing a boat to a cabin without having to stop. Heck maybe even get back home. At 320 it’s just a non starter to use it to tow anything that isn’t just around town.

I know the HN crowd like to joke that people just buy trucks to commute, but most folks that own one want to at least have the option to tow something without having to constantly deal with range anxiety.

What is so unpractical about it? Other than slope around the bed (can't access easily from sides if you are short) - it's about the same as other EV trucks - whose biggest problem is sadly still batteries (I'm sure it's fine as everyday trucks, but I feel truck drivers don't wanna be seen as everyday drivers I guess?)

The fact you can’t take it off and replace it with a flat tray or a service body, for a start.

The number of people who actually do that is miniscule.

The number of people (and in particular, fleet operators) who do that in Australia and NZ is extremely high.

Ford Ranger Super Duty wasn’t even available with a factory tub at launch, and the Toyota Landcruiser 79 doesn’t have one at all.

Why would you want that on EV chassis tho? The range is going to be terrible. Batteries for RVs simply aren't there yet.

I get it - it would be amazing from maintenance and economy perspective, especially on fleets. But for private owners and campervan hirers it makes little sense. Even something like V2L on most EVs suck for even weekend camping, let alone a whole week.

> Why would you want that on EV chassis tho?

Because you want to install equipment such as air compressors, pumps, welders, cranes or water tanks, or you want to carry bulky items like ladders, and/or you need accessible and ergonomic lockers, drawers etc to store your tools and equipment without having to dig around the tub.

Same reasons as you’d do this on an ICE truck.

I’ll say it again. The number of people _in the market segment Tesla is aiming the Cybertruck at_ who do that kind of thing is miniscule. Fleet trucks for plumbers or whatever were never a consideration; those users are outside the target audience for the Cybertruck.

The fact that you suggested that number people of people who install custom bodies etc is miniscule indicates that you are not at all familiar with the AU/NZ market.

This and the stupid new "flying car" really remind me of "The Homer" from The Simpsons [1].

[1] https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer

you mean the flying car that was demonstrated on stage as already literally not what he was talking about right in front of it? The one that clearly showed that the stuff that should have been on the underside just.... wasn't? And the demo was different cars doing the different stunts? The one with a 5 second fuel tank that takes 7 hours to refill? That flying car?

Lol I found that presentation so hilarious.

>The one that clearly showed that the stuff that should have been on the underside just.... wasn't?

That just isn't true. That conclusion is based on a single compressed screenshot from a low-quality compressed version of the livestream.

There are high-quality photographs taken by the people there that show its underside is entirely normal.

No matter what the truth of that, the 'flying car' is not a product. They didn't commit to selling it. So its pointless to even argue about it.

Thunderf00t was amazing at covering this thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdZ9MxtPBRY

Thunderf00t has been consistently and fantastically wrong about Falcon 9, Dragon, Starlink, Starship, Tesla Model 3, and Tesla FSD.

lol. sarcasm?

Yes, the elephant in the room is the "cutting edge styling".

I drove one as a loaner and I had all kinds of curiosity, but I didn't want anyone seeing me get in and out of it.

I think it was kind of like a pt cruiser, where the designers thought they were recreating the old style trucks, but to the public it was an acquired taste. A very acquired taste.

The bed design is actually kind of interesting. But I thought they demo'd that it could squat down like a loading ramp and I don't think that materialized.

Not completely sarcasm, I left unsaid that the bed design is a result of the "cutting edge styling", they would've had to change the styling on the back side at the very least to make a bit more practical truck.

And I think they should have moderated the style on the back. Gone for more of a mullet LOL.

Yeah except the PT cruiser is actually a good practical design, with a low floor entry height, and comfortable upright seating and pretty good cargo capacity and decent fuel economy. Its certainly more useful than today's crossovers. And was a sales success. They sold tons of them. The thing is, they thought it would appeal to young buyers, but it was mostly older people who flocked to them in droves. The PT Cruiser community also was massive, and their owners loved them. They were also mechanically simple and cheap to repair, being built on the Neon platform. It was a well thought out vehicle, and not just a gimmick. Even if you don't like the retro styling. I give Chrysler props for it.

What's 7 years of interest on $150AUS? Follow the money...

Based on the estimate in the article, Australia had 60k reservations. That's a 9m initial loan. Probably not significant for Tesla, but not nothing! If you bought Tesla stock with that money, spread across 2019, that'd be worth nearly 200m now so I guess that's a good estimate for what Tesla got out of this?

I think if you followed the money you’d find that it would be such a small amount as to be a ridiculously dumb scheme if it was meant to be one.

Good. There are far too many dickheads driving oversized obnoxious vehicles hostile to the public.

General Motors truck and SUV designer Karan Moorjani said “that’s what this truck should look like – a massive fist moving through the air.”

Not sure what the causal relationship is but I suspect it's a bit of both ways. Driving a big "fist" probably makes people drive more aggressively but I suspect assholes are attracted to buying them too.

Unfortunately this won't do much. There are so many Ford Rangers around that Ranger Danger is a term. And BYD seems keen to take over with the ugly shark.

> General Motors truck and SUV designer...

They should be pulled in and required to answer for pedestrian strike lawsuits and challenged why they chose to design the vehicle like that knowing the risk to the public, given public statements like that.

The person being quoted here, all they do is design cosmetic plastic for the front-end of the existing Chevy Silverado, since the GMC Sierra is a rebadge. They have no say on how tall the vehicle is.

Enron Musk.

These people are the lucky ones, the depositors for the roadster have been waiting for 10 years and will never get anything.

But flying cars!

They should each get a jar of fumes from the jet exhaust of those "flying cars". This memorabilia will be worth a fortune!

As a bonus, one of the jars contains actual Musk fart. It could be the one you bought!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com