A shipment of 66 production line robots has been delivered to Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, where the upcoming Cybertruck is expected to start production in 2023.
The robots, made by the German company Kuka, arrived from Europe on December 18, as shown in a bill of lading obtained by the Twitter user @greggertruck. In it, we can see several packages sent from Germany with the final destination being Tesla’s factory in Texas.
Kuka robots are used on Tesla’s assembly lines to put together various parts onto the Model 3, Model Y, Model S, and Model X, and are used at the Fremont, Texas, Shanghai, and Berlin facilities. They’re the big red and orange machines that can be seen in the various photos and videos taken inside the American manufacturer’s factories, like the one below.
Now, it’s worth mentioning that 66 robots aren’t enough for a full model production line, but this is just the beginning, we assume. Tesla already took delivery of its massive, 9,000-ton Giga Press from IDRA Group earlier in December, and now other shipments are coming in to slowly complete the inventory.
In other words, Tesla is taking the necessary steps to start low-volume production of the Cybertruck in mid-2023, with mass production scheduled for the end of 2023.
More hints come in the form of some job listings posted on the company’s website, such as Manufacturing Operations Leader - Cybertruck, Senior Equipment Engineer Robotics - BIW, Cybertruck, Dimensional Engineer - BIW, Cybertruck, and Maintenance & Reliability Engineer - BIW, Cybertruck, among others.
The Tesla Cybertruck was originally unveiled in late 2019, with plans to get into production by late 2021, but the American EV maker postponed it to the end of 2022, then to early 2023, and then to mid-2023.
During the 2019 unveiling, Elon Musk said that the starting price of the Cybertruck would be just under $40,000, but then, in October 2021, the company removed all the specs and prices from its website, with Musk mentioning that the electric pickup truck would have different prices and specifications than those initially announced.
What’s your take on this latest development on the Tesla Cybertruck? Let us know in the comments below.
