News
Tesla Cybertruck production has arrived: Here’s how it compares to its 2019 prototype
The Tesla Cybertruck production specs are here, and they are quite a bit different from the figures that were announced for the vehicle back in late 2019. From the size of the Cybertruck’s bed to its dimensions and range, the changes that were implemented on the pickup truck over the years are quite notable.
Whether or not these changes are ultimately for the better would be up for consumers to decide, of course. But for reference, here is a quick comparison of how the production Tesla Cybertruck compares to its hulking original prototype from 2019 — the prototype which, in a lot of ways, caused the auto industry to take a second look at Tesla’s sanity.
Dimensions
The original Cybertruck prototype from 2019 was a hulking steel beast that was announced with a length of 231.7 inches, a width of 79.8 inches, and a height of 75 inches. The production Cybertruck, as per Tesla’s official page for the vehicle, now has an overall length of 223.7 inches, a width of 86.6 inches with the mirrors folded, and an overall height of 70.5 inches.


Payload
Being a pickup truck, it is pertinent for the Cybertruck to have a decent payload capacity. The original prototype from 2019 was listed with a payload capacity of 3,500 pounds. During the Cybertruck delivery event, Elon Musk noted that the vehicle now features a payload capacity of 2,500 pounds. Musk did not, however, clarify if the 2,500-pound payload capacity was standard for all the Cybertruck’s variants.
Range
Range is among the production Cybertruck’s most notable areas of complaints from the EV community. During its 2019 debut, Tesla announced that the Cybertruck will have a range of 250+ miles for the RWD version, 300+ miles for the Dual Motor AWD version, and 500+ miles for the Tri-Motor variant. The production Cybertruck listed in Tesla’s updated website with a range of 250 miles for the RWD variant, 340 miles for the Dual Motor version, and 320 miles for the top-tier “Cyberbeast.”
Tesla did list a range extender option for the Cybertruck Dual Motor and the Cyberbeast. With the range extender, the Dual Motor could have a range of 470+ miles, and the Cyberbeast will have a range of 440+ miles. Overall, Tesla definitely missed its target with the Cyberbeast’s range, but the company did hit its target for the Dual Motor and RWD variants.


Towing
Back in 2019, the original Cybertruck’s RWD variant was listed with a towing capacity of 7,500 pounds, the Dual Motor was listed with a towing capacity of 10,000 pounds, and the Tri-Motor was listed with a towing capacity of 14,000 pounds. The production Cybertruck is currently listed with a towing capacity of 7,500 for its RWD version, and 11,000 pounds for both the Dual Motor and Cyberbeast trims.
Price
Tesla shocked attendees of the Cybertruck’s 2019 unveiling event when it announced that the base RWD version of the all-electric pickup truck will start at $39,990. At the time, the Dual Motor was listed at $49,990, and the Tri-Motor variant was listed with a price of 69,990. The production Cybertruck, as per Tesla’s configurator today, costs $60,990 for its RWD version, $79,990 for its Dual Motor variant, and $99,990 for its top-tier Cyberbeast trim.
Performance
During its 2019 unveiling, the original Cybertruck prototype was announced with a 0-60 mph time of 6.5 seconds for its RWD version, 4.5 seconds for its Dual Motor variant, and 2.9 seconds for its Tri-Motor trim. Top speed was also listed at 110 mph for the Cybertruck RWD, 120 mph for the Cybertruck Dual Motor, and 130 mph for the Cybertruck Tri-Motor.
Today, the production Cybertruck is listed with a 0-60 mph time of 6.5 seconds for its RWD version, 4.1 seconds for the Dual Motor variant, and 2.6 seconds for the Cyberbeast. The top speed for the production Cybertruck Dual Motor is now listed at 112 mph, and the Cyberbeast is listed with a 130 mph top speed.
Storage
Back in 2019, the original Tesla Cybertruck was announced with 100 cubic feet of exterior storage. Its bed was also 6.5 feet in length. During the recently-held Cybertruck delivery event, Elon Musk noted that the all-electric pickup truck now features a bed that’s 6 feet long and 4 feet wide. Tesla’s official page for the Cybertruck also mentions that the vehicle features “67 cubic feet of lockable storage.”
Tesla has noted that the Cybertruck experienced changes as it headed towards production. The vehicle’s size has definitely been affected, and so has the pickup truck’s storage capacity. It would now be quite interesting to see how the Tesla Cybertruck fares in the market as it competes against popular combustion-powered trucks and electric pickups like the Rivian R1T and the Ford F-150 Lightning.
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News
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says flying cars are coming
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that flying cars will be coming to the market, something that his own company has hinted at previously.
Musk said on X, in response to a post that read, “We were promised flying cars and all we got is infinite superintelligence for everyone,” “You will get flying cars.”
You will get flying cars
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2026
The post rang back to when Musk teased flying and hovering capabilities for the Tesla Roadster, the company’s supercar that has been delayed more times than anyone cares to count. It was set for an unveiling earlier this year, but it was then pushed back to August. There is still no sign of it coming.
However, that does not mean it won’t. But one of the biggest features of the Roadster that was teased was a SpaceX package that featured cold gas thrusters on the rear end that would help with white-knuckle acceleration. Another set would face the ground and would help the Roadster gain small bits of altitude, potentially helpful to jump over obstacles.
Elon Musk hints at Tesla Roadster’s “hovering” abilities in SpaceX package
But it is not a straightforward thing for Musk. As a serial entrepreneur, he tends to spend his time on major disruptors; currently, his largest projects are artificial intelligence and compute power, as well as SpaceX’s launches that will eventually make life multiplanetary.
In the past, he has been critical of flying cars and has been in favor of tunnels, one of the big reasons he started the Boring Company. In 2017 at a TED talk, he said:
“There is a challenge with flying cars in that they’ll be quite noisy. The wind force generated will be very high. Let’s just say that if something’s flying over your head, if there are a whole bunch of flying cars all over the place, that is not an anxiety-reducing situation…You’re thinking, ‘Did they service their hubcap? Or is it going to come off and guillotine me as they’re flying past?'”
However, he’s never been against them. He has also said he’s in favor of both tunnels and flying cars.
Contrary to press reports, I’m not against flying cars. Just said it was important to consider both pros and cons.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2015
Most recently, Musk said that anyone who wants a flying car should be able to get one. This was stated last October on the Joe Rogan Experience:
“My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars… I think if Peter wants a flying car, we should be able to buy one.”
Whether the Roadster will be Tesla’s flying car or potentially another one remains in the mind of Musk. Of course, the Roadster will have to make its way to production lines before we find out.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s next trillion dollar bet has nothing to do with rockets, Musk tells staff
Elon Musk told SpaceX staff AI revenue will soon dwarf rockets and Starlink combined entirely.
Elon Musk told SpaceX employees this week that artificial intelligence, not rockets, will soon carry the company’s revenue. In a roughly 29 minute internal address posted on SpaceX’s X account on Tuesday, Musk said AI revenue will pass every other line of business at SpaceX “probably in September” and pull further ahead by the fourth quarter.
The numbers he gave are specific. SpaceX currently runs 1.4 gigawatts of AI compute capacity. Musk wants that at 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027, a jump he tied directly to revenue: “if we bring 10GW of AI online by the end of next year, it will be $300 billion to $500 billion a year in revenue.” He called those “big numbers,” which undersells a projection larger than what most countries produce in a year.
We made rockets reusable and are rebuilding the internet in space. The next challenge: making life multiplanetary and understanding the true nature of the universe
Watch @ElonMusk deliver a company update to @SpaceX employees pic.twitter.com/5c8rxoCQfu
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 11, 2026
Musk went further on where AI fits into SpaceX’s future. “Probably in four or five years, AI will be 99% of the value of SpaceX,” he told staff, adding that digital intelligence would eventually run “a trillion times” ahead of biological intelligence as computing scales. He tied that growth to the company’s founding mission, telling employees “we must win on AI, because the future is overwhelmingly AI and robots,” with the payoff meant to help fund Starship and a Mars program that increasingly runs through Terafab, the joint Tesla, SpaceX and xAI chip plant.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
None of this is entirely new territory. SpaceX told investors much the same story during its first earnings call as a public company on August 4, where Musk moved the company’s $1 trillion revenue target up a year to 2030 and said Starlink could someday carry a majority of the world’s internet. What the all hands video adds is a hard deadline and a specific power figure Musk had not given publicly before, along with a franker pitch to his own workforce that AI, not launch cadence, is now the thing SpaceX is betting its future on.
The AI revenue itself is not coming from SpaceX training its own models. It is largely Starlink acting as the network layer for xAI’s workloads, plus SpaceX renting out compute capacity directly, the same approach behind the roughly $16 billion the company spent on AI infrastructure in a single quarter.
Musk closed the video with a pitch aimed at recruiting and retention rather than investors, telling employees that anyone who helps SpaceX win the AI race will eventually get the chance to go to the moon or Mars themselves. Whether SpaceX can turn 1.4 gigawatts into 10 in seventeen months is the more immediate question, and one that will show up in quarterly numbers well before anyone leaves Earth.
Investor's Corner
Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors: Morgan Stanley
In a new note to investors on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco said that Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors regarding its Robotaxi rollout, Full Self-Driving software, and Optimus.
Percoco said in the note that, for the most part, investors are still very positive about the direction the company is headed. However, there are some things the firm would like to see, and they have to do with financials.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla bulls are more than convinced that the company’s Full Self-Driving software is proof it can develop physical AI. Financially, however, there are still some questions, especially on elevated spending, which CEO Elon Musk said would occur as the company works to roll out Robotaxi faster and continue developing its Optimus robot.
The latter two are where Tesla will have to prove progress to investors, as Percoco writes that both projects “will require clearer evidence that Robotaxi is scaling and more tangible Optimus proof points to support the ROI on elevated capex.”
Percoco said the second quarter earnings call did not change his long-term thesis of where Tesla is positioned in the AI race, which is out in front. However, there are concerns that weaker gross margins and higher R&D spend will stress financials, and that has “sharpened our (and investors’) focus on measurable progress across Robotaxi and Optimus.”
Additionally, Robotaxi still needs to be proven with more operation in existing cities while maintaining safety but improving how many rides it gives in any given time, he said. For Optimus, Percoco wrote that he is “still looking for evidence beyond commentary around SOP.”
Morgan Stanley put Percoco in charge of covering Tesla after long-time analyst Adam Jonas transitioned to the automotive side.
Currently, Morgan Stanley has a $415 price target on Tesla and a ‘Hold’ rating on the stock. It is trading at around $330 at the time of publication, which was 2:30 P.M. on the East Coast.
