No one is perfect, and neither is Tesla, even if it feels at times as if the company – and Elon Musk – can do no wrong. Even diehard Tesla supporters will admit that Tesla does occasionally put a wrong foot forward. But hey, at least it does it with flair.
In mid-October, Tesla announced a new line of Cybertruck-related merchandise, available online through the Tesla shop. Like all other Tesla-branded products, excluding the electric vehicles, the new range sold out instantly, sending waves of anticipation through the Tesla fan base.
After all, what was there not to love?! Well, maybe pricing was one thing. The CyberBeer + CyberStein Limited Edition set, which includes two bottles of CyberBeer and two Cybertruck-inspired mugs to sip them out of, retailed for $150, while the matching CyberOpener was $50. "Is" because it's still available.
The underwhelming quality of the packaging and of the contents might be another.
Photo: Twitter/Brian Stone
According to the first customers to have received the Limited Edition set, some bottles are shipped with rusted lids. A rusted cap on your beer bottle is the last thing you'd expect from a product that costs this much. It doesn't help that the beer itself tastes like hot garbage, regardless of whether you drink it ice cold – in which case, it tastes like ice cold hot garbage, according to one dissatisfied customer.
Another customer, equally dissatisfied, is giving Tesla credit where it's due. The overall packaging is close to perfect, from the cardboard box to the mugs and the sleeves of the beer bottles. That is to say, the rusted caps and the pi*s-poor quality of the lager are not Tesla's fault. Tesla might wear a lot of hats, but a brewing company it is not: like with all Tesla merchandise, the actual production goes to a third-party partner.
Of course, we could argue that any company should claim at least some responsibility for the quality of a product when it puts its logo on it, but that wouldn't be of much help here. The CyberBeer, unlike the Berlin-made GigaBier, is not a good beer, and those who paid $150 for it will have to take the loss.
The fact that both bottles and accompanying mugs are so nicely designed will help. At the end of the day, seeing how fast these Tesla products sell, maybe the intent behind them was always to turn them into collectibles and not necessarily to deliver a product for mass consumption.
Again, we could go off on a long discussion on whether this means Tesla is ripping off its own customer base by overcharging for subpar products masquerading as collectibles, but as long as the same customers aren't taking issue with it, why should we?
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
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