Tesla delivers its first stainless steel Cybertrucks

Tesla has released its latest vehicle, the futuristic Cybertruck, which is being hailed as the car "making sci-fi a reality".

The vehicle costs around £48,000, which is more than 50% more than its projected price and the first deliveries came around two years later than expected.

“It’s the most unique thing on the road,” he said. “Finally the future will look like the future,” Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk told audiences at a customer delivery event on Thursday.

The vehicle, which Mr Musk said was inspired by the car-submarine in 1977 James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me, has a stainless steel exoskeleton which Tesla said should reduce dents and long-term corrosion. The window glass can reportedly resist the impact of a baseball at 70 mph.

The vehicle can go from zero to 60 mph in 2.6 seconds in "beast mode" and Mr Musk showed videos of the truck beating a Porsche 911 in a race while the Cybertruck towed another Porsche on a trailer at Thursday's event in Austin, Texas.

The car is also designed as a haul truck, with a towing capacity of 4,990kg and a 2,500kg payload.

The Cybertruck is claimed to be "built for any planet" and has 35-inch all-terrain tyres and 17 inches of ground clearance to enable it to tackle bigger obstacles. 

It follows in the Tesla trend of electric vehicles, and can travel up to 340 miles on a single charge.

But it hasn't been easy bringing the Cybertruck to market, Mr Musk said in an earnings call in October.

“We dug our own grave with Cybertruck,” Mr Musk said, who added that he didn’t think the company would reach its production target of 250,000 per year until 2025.

“We have over 1 million people who have reserved the car, so it’s not a demand issue,” he said. “But we have to make it and we need to make it at a price people can afford. Insanely difficult things.”

In 2019 Tesla said the base version of the truck would start around £31,500, with a tri-motor, long-range model costing £48,000. The base model is now around £48,000, while the more advanced version comes in at around £79,000.

The vehicle was first revealed four years ago but the initial deliveries were fulfilled on Thursday, which is two years later than originally forecast, as the company tries to work out how large-scale production will work.

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