Tesla’s Cybertruck Finally Starts Production — But Is It Already Doomed?

Elon Musk is no stranger to bold predictions. There’s , the automaker’s big, splashy, first Cybertruck may have rolled off the production line with a noticeable flaw: a misaligned door.

It’s obviously too early to sound any alarm bells, but in a rollout rife with inauspicious starts, making a bad omen out of an oops doesn’t feel out of the question.

Fan power

I’d be a fool to count Tesla out completely. In the EV titan’s early stages, plenty of people (and legacy automakers) scoffed at the idea that an upstart could create a market for electric cars where the was none — let alone do so without preexisting infrastructure for manufacturing or even places to sell the cars it made.

But here we are with Tesla still at the top of North America’s EV totem poll. And maybe that’s just the difference.

Back then, Tesla got points for treading into unknown territory. Issues with craftsmanship, recalls, or less-than-ideal software, all seemed a little less unforgivable as a result. But how people react to an upstart and how people react to the champ are two different things. Maybe, even if Tesla doesn’t exactly deliver on the Cybertrucks initial-but-bold vision of an electric pickup truck, its stalwart fans will be enough to carry the EV forward. Tesla fans are known for their zeal, after all.

But maybe that’s expecting too much. Maybe Tesla’s margin for error isn’t quite what it used to be. And maybe the Cybertruck, in all of its polished, boxy, glory, is right back at its embarrassing cracked-window debut. And here we are watching Musk and friends with the proverbial ball in hand to see if this time the Cybertruck’s window actually holds up to those big, heavy expectations.