Ford responds to Tesla's new Cybertruck (F, TSLA)

Graham Rapier

November 22, 2019 4:48 PM

Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled Cybertruck , the company's first passenger truck, on Thursday night.

Tesla truck versus Ford F-150

During the presentation, Musk took shots at traditional makers in his usual fashion.
"We've always focused on serving our truck customers regardless of what others say or do," a Ford spokesperson told Business Insider.
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Elon Musk didn't hold back on his usual criticism of traditional automakers as he unveiled Tesla's long-awaited Crybertruck on Thursday . But Ford doesn't seem to scared.

"Trucks have been the same for a very long time, like 100 years," Musk told the crowd at Tesla's design center in Hawthorne, California. "We wanted to try something different."

After showing the Tesla truck could withstand more damage from a sledgehammer than a regular truck's door, Musk said "You want a truck that's really tough, not fake tough."

That might be the case, but for America's consumers, the truck they've wanted for decades has been the Ford F-150.

In response to Musk's shade at it and other automakers, Ford sent the following statement:

"With America's best-selling truck for 42 years, we've always focused on serving our truck customers regardless of what others say or do. We look forward to our all-new F-150 hybrid coming next year and all-electric F-150 in a few years.

Musk has long had disdain for traditional automakers. And for the most part, he's successfully beat them at their own game, at least when it comes to electric vehicles. The Model 3 was the best -selling electric vehicle in the US for the first half of 2019, according to data from InsideEVs .

Tesla could likely produce up to 175,000 in its first full year of production in 2020, analysts estimate. That's a far cry from Ford's roughly 1 million every year.

"In a nutshell, we believe this next generation Cybertruck model could help Tesla expand its market opportunity outside its core customer base over time," Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, said in a note to clients.

"Although gaining market share with stalwarts such as Ford and GM entrenched in this landscape will be a difficult task for Fremont."

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