Musk made the announcement at the launch party for Tesla’s Gigafactory in Texas. A production version of the Cybertruck was on stage during the event, showing a slight change to the original design: the truck will no longer come with door handles; instead, sensors will detect when an owner is nearby and open automatically. Tesla’s unveiling of the Cybertruck almost three years ago didn’t go entirely smoothly. An employee threw a metal ball at its “unbreakable” driver’s side glass windows, both of which shattered. Musk later said this was due to an earlier test that involved hitting the truck’s doors with a sledgehammer. That might have proved the Cybertruck’s body durability, but it also cracked the panes of glass housed inside the base of the doors, apparently. Tesla in 2021 announced that the Cybertruck wouldn’t be arriving that year but would ship in 2022 instead. Musk then told employees production wouldn’t start until late this year, and a report in January claimed the EV would arrive 2023, which Musk has now confirmed. Elsewhere, Musk said a wide beta of Tesla’s Full Self-driving Technology should launch in the US later this year, and the Tesla Semi EV is also set for release in 2023. The CEO added that next year would see production begin on the Optimus robot, which he previously called Tesla’s most important in-development product, potentially bigger than its vehicle business.
