Elon Musk hints at surprising design update for Tesla Cybertruck — here’s how it could push the envelope of the global auto industry

If it feels like you’ve been spotting more and more Tesla Cybertrucks on the road this past year, you’re not imagining things. Demand for the electric pickup model has been surging in the U.S., and the automaker has been ramping up production to meet it.

Now, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk is hinting the company is considering adapting the vehicle to bring it to international markets, according to EV news site Teslarati.

The key issue is the design and size of the truck. “There has always been talk about the size of the vehicle and whether it would be a suitable option for the narrow streets of Europe and Asia,” Teslarati reported. In December 2023, Tesla VP of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy told TopGear the design was simply incompatible with certain European regulations.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean an international version of the Cybertruck is out of the question, especially as many estimate the market demand for it to be “sizable.”

“It seems the automaker would have to build some sort of alternative, perhaps a truck with smaller dimensions or even a different vehicle body style with a Cybertruck-inspired look,” Teslarati reported.

The report included a tweet from Musk — who owns the platform X, formerly known as Twitter — where he responded to somebody musing about the unmet demand for EV pickups in Europe and beyond.

“Yeah,” he wrote, leaving many to wonder if that meant Tesla was already working on such plans.

Enthusiasm for electric vehicles is broadly on the rise, as fossil-fuel-powered transportation generates approximately one-fifth of the planet’s heat-trapping pollution every year, per Our World in Data.

In fact, Tesla has also announced the company may be expanding its new Semi truck to international markets as well. This would be a major step toward reducing emissions, as the trucking industry accounts for 25% of all transportation-related pollution, Forbes reported.

And not only are EVs better for the environment, they’re better for their owners’ wallets. Without the need to buy expensive gasoline or diesel to refuel, and with less maintenance needed over their lifetimes due to fewer moving parts, electric vehicles can save their owners anywhere from $1,500 to $2,400 per year compared to their combustion-powered counterparts.