Lifestyle
Legacy auto still has a chance to win on electric pickup trucks, but will they take it?
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A recent consumer survey conducted by Autolist.com revealed some interesting indicators about the future of electric pickup trucks. On one hand, there’s still time for legacy auto makers to read the memo about the future of their industry with regard to power source. Decades of branding and (mild) innovations could pay off for them because their customers are watching what they’re doing and extending some good will based on the reputation they’ve built. Tesla might be playing a big role in the industry’s directional change, but they don’t necessarily win customers by default because of that role.
On the other hand, car buyers (as expected) don’t seem to be that into radical changes when making a personal transportation choice, but they could be convinced over time. In fact, Autolist’s survey might show that if big truck companies either don’t play ball in the EV transition or they only play half-heartedly, their industry leadership could be chipped away until things collapse altogether.
Let’s look at the survey’s data to break down why I think these things are indicated.
Out of about 1,100 people surveyed to choose one of four electric truck options, of which there was a 50/50 split between those who’d currently/previously owned a truck and those who never had, GM’s still non-existent future truck was the highest-ranked. Ford’s F-150 and Rivian’s R1T came in the middle, and the Tesla Cybertruck was ranked last. Although GM’s vehicle is sight-unseen, the number one reason those surveyed made it their number one choice was due to their trust and existing preference for the brand. Ford’s F-150 was primarily chosen by those people for the same reason as well.
These replies indicate that the billions invested in marketing and production over the years could pay off for GM and Ford in the EV sector. However, their brands of trucks were also expected to have good performance and be reliable, the number 2 and 3 reasons they were chosen. In other words, just putting their name on a vehicle won’t be enough in the long term. In fact, the number one reason why the Tesla Cybertruck was the first choice of those people was the expected performance. The cyberpunk look of the pickup didn’t even rank, and Tesla’s other investments – Autopilot and their charging network – were tied for reasons number 2 and 3 in those customer choices. Interestingly enough, the styling of Rivian’s R1T was the number one reason it was ranked by those responders by a long shot (75%).
It seems that the traditional “look” of a truck is pretty much preferred by customers, as expected by many, but as also expected by many, the performance is important enough to turn heads in unconventional directions. I mean, this is all probably just preaching to the choir for lots of EV watchers and so forth, but seeing some data come in to validate the opinions is interesting.
Another interesting breakdown in the survey that somewhat validates both camps on whether Cybertruck can appeal to enough buyers to be considered successful is that among prior and current truck owners, only 14% preferred it over the other three options. GM’s unseen truck was preferred by 35% of respondents, Ford by 28%, and Rivian by 23%. I’d say that is definitely validation for people saying that “truck” people like their trucks to look like what they’ve come to think trucks should look like. Cybertruck, however, was the number one choice of those who’d never owned a truck before. But, I think there’s still a caveat here.
Cybertruck may have been the number one truck choice for first-time truck buyers, but that number one rank was nearly even with the other three choices. Tesla’s pickup came in at 25.8%, Rivian’s R1T was 24.8%, and the F-150 and GM trucks tied at 24.7% – all are within a percentage of one another. So, even among people that might be more open-minded about what a truck should look like, Cybertruck is still only appealing to a minority of consumers. Overall, it looks like 75% of even first time truck buyers want one that looks traditional, and 85% of current/prior truck owners want the old look as well.
Yet still, the “big guys” don’t really have the wiggle room to loose even the smaller percentage of people that want something different in a truck. As many commenters pointed out under Teslarati’s report on this survey, GM has some workforce headaches and retirement obligations that make its bottom profit line very thin.
Already, it’s tough for union-weighted factories to make significant changes to their product lineups because workers’ jobs are threatened by various parts of the innovations, thus strikes and shutdowns and bankruptcies are always looming. If GM and other companies with similar balancing acts can’t make enough changes to get their electric trucks to compete with the performance of Cybertruck (and perhaps the R1T), they’re going to leak customers where they just can’t afford to leak them, and when customers leave…so goes their money. Shareholders will only tolerate so much squeezing (or so it seems).
Tesla is already hitting hard with a $40k truck whose performance expectations are incredible. If their competition can’t play ball with those specs on something that looks traditional, losing money along the way, they could end up losing the “big” game (i.e., shut down completely) and have to bow out to Tesla and Rivian altogether. Tesla could also go in for the kill move, too, and just put something out there for the same price range and specs as Cybertruck that looks fairly “normal” to scoop up GM’s and Ford’s customer holdouts over style.
We shall see. Isn’t speculation fun?
Elon Musk
Tesla primes Cybercabs for 4K streaming and high bandwidth gaming with Starlink integration
Tesla is now shipping Cybercabs from Giga Texas with Starlink hardware built in as standard.
Tesla’s Cybercabs are now leaving Gigafactory Texas with Starlink hardware on the rear hatch in significant numbers, according to drone footage captured Tuesday by longtime Austin drone observer Joe Tegtmeyer. Production at the factory ramped back up after the Labor Day weekend, and his flyover of the outbound lot showed rows of gold Cybercabs alongside Model Y Long Wheelbase units, many carrying the satellite module for the first time as standard equipment rather than a one off retrofit.
Giga Texas today is busy with production coming back up following the long weekend. Of interest today in the outbound lot is the appearance of hundreds of Mode; YL’s and many more Cybercabs and for the 1st time equipped with the Starlink module one the hatch in big numbers.
At… pic.twitter.com/G9yl6s51m4
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) September 8, 2026
Tesla first showed Starlink built into an actual Cybercab on August 10, when the Robotaxi account posted images of a single gold unit with the antenna integrated into the roofline above the taillights and called it the first Cybercab with Starlink integration. That followed a July reveal where Tesla and Starlink jointly posted a cutaway diagram of the antenna placement without a working vehicle to back it up. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI software, said at the time that the connection isn’t required for the car to drive itself. It exists mainly for navigation, customer service and keeping tabs on the fleet.
Musk has made a different case in public. During Tesla’s Q2 earnings call, he said the company can’t afford robotaxis stranded in what he called “Bermuda Triangles of lack of cellular connectivity,” and he separately claimed on X that Starlink will eventually reach every Tesla built, calling it the only way to deliver high bandwidth to billions of vehicles. He has also pitched the antenna as an entertainment upgrade, telling riders they would be able to stream 4K video or play games during a trip.
The rollout has moved fast since. Robotaxi service opened to the public in Austin on September 3, and Cybercabs had already been spotted with Starlink hardware in Houston and near Miami International Airport in the weeks before Tuesday’s factory footage showed the module shipping at volume rather than on scattered test units. Whether the satellite link earns its keep is still an open question. Tesla’s unsupervised service currently runs in dense metro geofences in Texas and Florida, markets where cellular coverage is already strong, which is not where the rural dead zones Musk describes tend to show up.
Lifestyle
Tesla Cybertruck targets job site crews with new Tailgate Utility Track and Bed Gear Box accessory
Tesla launched a $350 tailgate track and a $985 lockable Bed Gear Box for Cybertruck.
Tesla’s Cybertruck team added two more items to the Tesla Shop, targeting job site crews and owners who use the truck bed for actual work rather than just showing it off. The official Cybertruck X account posted the Tailgate Utility Track and the Bed Gear Box within minutes of each other, part of a five item batch that also included a reflective jacket, a spray paint hat and an updated reflective tee.
The Tailgate Utility Track runs $350 and turns the folded down tailgate into another mounting surface. It’s a single aluminum track with a T-slot for sliding accessories and two L-track attachment points, plus two load stops included in the box. The pitch is straightforward: strap down oversized cargo, like lumber or a cooler, that hangs off the back of the bed without it sliding out mid-drive. It bolts onto the existing tailgate and works on every Cybertruck trim.
Tailgate Utility Trackhttps://t.co/PCAYXlFBvS pic.twitter.com/sCV2NVxf1W
— Cybertruck (@cybertruck) September 3, 2026
The Bed Gear Box costs $985 and is a different kind of accessory. It’s a lockable aluminum storage box, 55.78 inches long, 19.8 inches wide and 7.79 inches tall, that mounts to the bed’s L-track rails and comes with two internal bins for smaller items. According to Tesla, at just over 57 pounds empty, it’s meant to stay in place rather than come in and out with each trip, giving owners a factory-fit alternative to loose totes for tools, recovery gear or emergency supplies. Tesla’s listing notes that Long Range and Dual Motor AWD Cybertrucks need the L-Tracks accessory installed separately before the Gear Box will mount, since L-tracks come standard only on certain configurations.
Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory
Both accessories lean on the idea Tesla has been building toward since Elon Musk first described the Cybertruck’s third-party attachment strategy at the 2023 shareholder meeting, when he said the truck would ship with mounting points so outside companies, and Tesla itself, could keep adding gear without redesigning the bed. That’s the same L-track backbone underneath the tailgate shield and jumpseats Tesla launched last year, and the off-road armor package that arrived through the same X account in 2025.
Owners looking to round out the rest of the L-track ecosystem, cargo dividers, MOLLE panels, bed racks and similar gear, can find a wider range of options through our Cybertruck accessories collection.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk says he knows how to save Earth for a billion years
Elon Musk says sentient AI satellites launched from the Moon could keep Earth livable forever.
Elon Musk spent part of his weekend describing a plan to keep the planet livable for roughly a billion years, and it starts with satellites that can think for themselves.
In a post on X, Musk argued that swapping fossil fuels for solar and wind power will not be enough to protect humanity from what he called extremely severe extinction events, the kind that occur roughly every 100 million years. His fix is what he called sentient satellites, or solar-powered satellites, controlled by AI, that would sit in a fixed spot between Earth and the Sun after being launched off the Moon using a giant electromagnetic catapult instead of rockets.
The satellites’ onboard AI would make continuous, small adjustments rather than waiting on human instructions. The mass driver is Musk’s proposed way of getting the raw material there cheaply by using an electromagnetic launch track built on the Moon, where lower gravity and no atmosphere make it far easier to fling cargo into space than it is from Earth.
But we do need to act much faster than that if people still want to live where the beach is today. We have about 50 years or so to take action, which should be more than enough time for the space satellites to solve any heating problems. https://t.co/xhrVQALwQw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 30, 2026
Musk shared a Grok generated estimate suggesting roughly 5 percent of Florida’s land, or about 1.68 million acres, could face regular flooding by 2070 under a high sea level rise scenario, and said humanity has about 50 years to act before coastal living looks very different than it does today.
This is not the first time Musk has floated the idea. He raised a similar concept in November, describing a solar powered AI satellite constellation that could make tiny adjustments to incoming sunlight to fine tune Earth’s temperature. Musk has also tied planetary risk to his broader vision at SpaceX, where his compensation package is explicitly linked to establishing a self-sustaining Mars colony, one he has described as an insurance policy against the kind of extinction event he referenced this weekend, and where he has said humans could set foot within five to seven years.
Why SpaceX is finishing another space-internet system that isn’t Starlink
Tesla gives the Roadster an official “Go for launch” demonstration date
