Exhibit A · claims vs delivery
Promise Ledger
Fifteen public claims from the November 21, 2019 reveal — and one later volume promise — scored against what actually shipped through July 24, 2026.
The reveal made specific, checkable claims: prices, ranges, towing, payload, acceleration, timing. This ledger holds each one against production reality. Where a claim can’t be scored cleanly — because the original wording is disputed, the evidence is secondhand, or the outcome is still open — the row says so instead of rounding to a verdict.
Two things this ledger is not: it is not a list of everything that went wrong (recalls live in their own exhibit), and it is not a claim that every promise was broken. The acceleration numbers were kept outright, and the famous “bulletproof” line was kept as actually stated — the popular retelling is what overstates it.
Single-motor RWD from $39,900
Never sold at that price. The cheapest trim ever delivered was the RWD at $69,990 (April–September 2025); a temporary promotional AWD reached $59,990 in February 2026, described by Musk as a short-term demand test.
Caveat The $60,990 RWD listed at the November 2023 launch was withdrawn in August 2024 without a single delivery.
Sources: [Tesla][InsideEVs][Electrek][Electrek][U.S. News / AP]
Dual-motor AWD from $49,900
AWD launched at $79,990 in November 2023 — 60% above the promise — and has ranged roughly $59,990–$82,235 across promotions since. It has never been offered near $49,900.
Caveat The February 2026 $59,990 price was explicitly framed by Musk as a temporary 'flash sale'.
Sources: [Tesla][InsideEVs][Electrek]
Tri-motor from $69,900
The tri-motor Cyberbeast launched at $99,990, rose to roughly $114,990 in 2025, then was cut back to $99,990 in February 2026 — 43% above the promise at its cheapest.
Caveat Foundation Series versions bundled extras at $119,990 during the launch year.
Sources: [Tesla][InsideEVs][Electrek]
Single-motor range 250+ miles
The RWD trim delivered an EPA-estimated 250 miles at its 2025 launch spec.
Caveat The trim itself arrived roughly four years after the promised window and was discontinued within months.
Sources: [Tesla][InsideEVs][Electrek]
Dual-motor range 300+ miles
AWD delivered an EPA-estimated 340 miles at the November 2023 launch — above the promised floor.
Caveat Independent highway tests report real-world results below the EPA figure, as is common across EVs.
Sources: [Tesla][InsideEVs]
Tri-motor range 500+ miles
The Cyberbeast delivered an EPA-estimated 320 miles standalone. The optional Range Extender pack needed to approach the promise was announced, then never sold; owner-community reporting indicates Tesla cancelled it in May 2025.
Caveat The Range Extender cancellation is documented through owner-community and secondary reporting, not a Tesla press statement.
Sources: [Tesla][InsideEVs][Wikipedia]
Towing 7,500 / 10,000 / 14,000+ lb by trim
Maximum towing as delivered is 11,000 lb (AWD/Cyberbeast); RWD and the 2026 base AWD are rated at 7,500 lb. The 14,000+ lb tri-motor figure was never offered.
Caveat The 2019 per-trim towing breakdown is consistently reported in contemporaneous coverage but could not be re-verified against an archived Tesla order page during research (archive fetches were blocked).
Sources: [Tesla][InsideEVs][Wikipedia]
Payload up to 3,500 lb
Production payload is approximately 2,500 lb across trims — roughly 29% below the promise.
Caveat The exact current payload figure was not confirmed against a live Tesla spec page during research (tesla.com returned HTTP 403 to automated fetch).
Sources: [Tesla][InsideEVs][Wikipedia]
0–60 mph: under 6.5 s (single) / 4.5 s (dual) / 2.9 s (tri)
Delivered figures — 6.5 s (RWD), ~4.1 s (AWD), 2.6 s (Cyberbeast) — matched or beat every 2019 number.
Caveat The AWD launch figure was reported as either 4.1 s or 3.9 s across outlets; the more conservative 4.1 s is used here.
Sources: [Tesla][InsideEVs]
Production from late 2021 (single/dual) and 2022 (tri-motor)
First customer deliveries came November 30, 2023 — a roughly two-year slip from the last firm pre-launch target and nearly four years after the reveal, following publicly acknowledged re-targetings in 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Caveat Musk himself said in July 2022: 'We dug our own grave with Cybertruck.'
Sources: [Tesla][Rev.com (Tesla webcast transcript)][Tesla Investor Relations][Wikipedia]
Roughly 250,000 Cybertrucks per year, 'sometime in 2025' (Musk, October 2023 earnings call; 250,000–500,000 stated May 2023)
Best independent estimate for full-year 2025 U.S. sales is 20,237 — about 8% of the target Tesla's CEO set with an explicit 2025 timeline. Tesla's own October 2025 recall filing put cumulative production at 63,619 units.
Caveat This benchmark comes from 2023 executive statements, not the 2019 reveal; no verified 2019-era annual-volume promise exists. Tesla does not disclose model-level sales; annual figures are Cox Automotive/KBB estimates.
Sources: [Rev.com (Tesla webcast transcript)][Forbes][Automotive News][Cox Automotive / Kelley Blue Book][NHTSA]
Ultra-hard 30X cold-rolled stainless exoskeleton, marketed as dent- and corrosion-resistant
The material is as described, but owners documented dents, scratches, and orange surface-rust spotting within weeks of early ownership. Tesla attributes rust spotting to embedded surface contamination, not corrosion of the base stainless, and its current marketing uses resistance language rather than immunity claims.
Caveat Long-term corrosion behavior remains an open question; no systemic corrosion recall exists.
Sources: [Tesla][Automotive News]
Body panels resist 9mm handgun rounds (Musk's actual qualified on-stage claim)
Later ballistic testing confirmed the panels stop 9mm pistol rounds. They are penetrated by rifle calibers — which Tesla never claimed to resist.
Caveat The popular retelling drops the 9mm qualifier; the unqualified word 'bulletproof' overstates what was claimed.
Sources: [Wikipedia][Electrek]
'Tesla Armor Glass' windows survive impact demonstrations
Both demonstration windows cracked on stage at the reveal after steel-ball throws. Musk later said a preceding sledgehammer strike had weakened the glass base.
Caveat The verdict applies to the on-stage demonstration; production-glass durability relative to marketing language is not independently measurable from available sourcing.
Sources: [Wikipedia][Tesla]
Cybertruck-specific self-driving capability at the reveal
No verified Cybertruck-specific autonomy quote from the 2019 reveal was located; FSD was offered as an option across the lineup. FSD (Supervised) is active on Cybertruck in 2026 — and is the subject of an open NHTSA Engineering Analysis (EA26002, ~3.2M vehicles, 80 logged incidents through December 2025).
Caveat An open investigation is not a defect finding; this row cannot be scored kept or missed on current evidence.
An affordable base Cybertruck as a durable part of the lineup
The $60,990 RWD shown at launch was withdrawn in August 2024 without ever shipping. The $69,990 RWD sold only April–September 2025 before being discontinued. The February 2026 $59,990 AWD was announced as a roughly 10-day demand test.
Caveat Reporting ties the RWD discontinuation to the September 30, 2025 expiration of the federal EV tax credit.
Sources: [U.S. News / AP][Electrek][Electrek][Intuit TurboTax blog]