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Tesla Cybertruck won’t be five per cent smaller after all, compact ute could follow

The Tesla Cybertruck is likely going to have many people pulling out their tape measures when it eventually arrives in showrooms.


This is due to boss of the company Elon Musk saying the real thing would be five per cent smaller than the concept – only to later clarify it will only be slightly smaller.

During an interview with car enthusiast and comedian Jay Leno – who got a world scoop by driving the Tesla Cybertruck concept vehicle for a segment on his TV show – Musk said: “I think we got the proportions here pretty close. We’re five per cent too big. If we just take all of the proportions and drop them by about five per cent … it’s got to fit in a normal garage.”

 

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Musk also said in the interview: “At Tesla we always want to have the production car be better than the show car. It always drove me crazy when manufacturers would come out with this cool-looking show car, and then the actual production car would be way worse. And you’re like, man, you got us all excited about this sweet looking car and then the production one is … terrible.”

However, in response to a Tweet from a Tesla Cybertruck fan – who reportedly has one on order – Musk wrote: “Reviewed design with Franz last night. Even 3 per cent smaller is too small. Will be pretty much this size. We’ll probably do a smaller, tight world truck at some point.”

The “Franz” referred to in Musk’s Tweet is Tesla designer Franz von Holzhausen. And if the real Tesla Cybertruck is only 3 per cent smaller than the concept, few people would likely pick the difference.

What also attracted our interest was Musk’s mention of a possible “smaller, tight world truck at some point”. Did he mean a smaller, light world truck?

The US market is dominated by pick-ups such as the Ford F150, Ram 1500 and Chevrolet Silverado 1500.

However, Australia and the rest of the world finds “compact pick-ups” or “light commercial vehicles” such as the Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger more popular.

It’s unclear what this means for a smaller sibling to the Tesla Cybertruck.

For the time being, the full-size version of the Cybertruck is on sale on the Tesla Australia website. Customers can place an order for $150.

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Joshua Dowling

Joshua Dowling has been a motoring journalist for more than 20 years, spending most of that time working for The Sydney Morning Herald (as motoring editor and one of the early members of the Drive team) and News Corp Australia. He joined CarAdvice / Drive in 2018, and has been a World Car of the Year judge for more than 10 years.

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