Gary Zhou 
Key Points
- 🚗 Tesla aims to produce around 200,000 Cybertrucks per year once production is scaled up.
- 🏭 Manufacturing is emphasized as a challenging aspect by Elon Musk, who notes that it’s often not well-understood by the public.
- 🕰 Musk predicts that ramping up Cybertruck production will take 12 to 18 months, echoing previous challenges faced during Model 3 production.
- 🤖 Musk admires Henry Ford for his contributions to mass manufacturing in the automotive industry.
During a recent interview with podcast host Joe Rogan, Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared some interesting details about the upcoming Cybertruck, including how many units the automaker is looking to produce per year.
When asked on the podcast how many Cybertrucks Tesla can make in a month, Musk told Rogan that Tesla is looking to build around 200,000 Cybertrucks per year upon scaling production.
“We’re aiming to make about 200,000 a year at volume production,” Musk said. “Maybe a little more, but I just can’t emphasize enough that manufacturing is much much harder than the initial design.”
“Not that the Cybertruck was easy to design, I’m not trying to trivialize design. What I’m trying to do is to emphasize the difficulty of manufacturing which is not understood by the public because there’s no movie about it,” Musk added.
The stated figure would put Tesla at over 16,500 units per month, for a weekly production output of more than 4,000 Cybertrucks. In May, Musk predicted Tesla would eventually build between 250,000 and 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.
During Tesla’s Q3 earnings call, Musk also said that ramping up Cybertruck production would take 12 to 18 months. Musk’s statement also echoed past sentiments surrounding the difficulty in ramping up production of any vehicle, like the many times he has referred to the Model 3’s ramp-up as “production hell.”
In addition to discussing the Cybertruck production ramp, Musk shared how much he looks up to Ford Motors Founder Henry Ford, even calling him a “next-level genius.”
“The amazing thing about automobiles was not so much the invention of the automobile, but the invention of the factory and mass manufacturing,” Musk said. “And for that, Henry Ford deserves a lot of credit. He was a next-level genius. In fact, Ford is really responsible for the entire mass manufacturing industry because he actually founded Cadillac, which was the heart of General Motors, then he got kicked out and then started Ford. And then other companies copied him.”
The manufacturing details came among several other topics discussed during the podcast, which is over two hours long. You can listen to the full podcast on Spotify.
