The Tesla Cybertruck is Awesome and Utterly Ridiculous
It never should have been built, but what a statement it is
If you haven’t seen customers with their new Tesla Cybertrucks on YouTube, you’ve clearly been hiding under a rock somewhere. Well, deliveries are in progress, and the angular beast is quite obviously the hottest automotive release of 2024. Less of an electric pickup truck and more of a rolling pièce de résistance, the Cybertruck can’t help but get noticed.
We probably should’ve put some charging stations in there (image: Sitrep’d).
When it hit the stage back in November of 2019, it was like nothing else the automotive world had ever seen. The Cybertruck looked like something created for lunar expeditions. It looked more like a futuristic tool than it did a truck. Reaction to the Cybertruck probably wasn’t dissimilar to the public’s reception of the radical Lancia Stratos Zero when it broke cover at the 1970 Turin Motor Show. The Cybertruck pushed the envelope even more because what you saw on stage in 2019 was meant to be pretty close to production. Elon made a lot of crazy claims at the unveiling, not all of which turned out as he planned, namely the armored glass that was supposed to let that big steel ball just bounce off. It didn’t matter. Tesla couldn’t collect the deposits for initial reservations fast enough. Prior to delivery, Tesla had received around 2 million reservations. That’s not niche, folks.
More than the crazy claims (no, it’s not ready for the Baja Rally, Elon), it’s the sheer existence of the Cybertruck that’s worth mentioning. The formula for the tried and true body-on-frame pickup truck shouldn’t be messed with, should it? After all, Ford’s F-Series pickup trucks have been the best-selling vehicles in America for decades. Elon’s creation of the Cybertruck isn’t all that different from Ang Lee’s attempt to reinterpret the superhero genre with 2003’s “Hulk”. Did it need to be made? No. Was it polarizing? Yes. That’s where Elon might have hit on something. No one thought, “Gee, the Cybertruck is something the world needs!” But Elon did it anyway. Why? Because only he could’ve done such a thing. None of Detroit’s Big Three would even try to get something like the Cybertruck past the bean counters. It’s just too crazy. That’s Elon Musk for ya.
The Cybertruck’s minimalist cabin also amounts to many missed storage opportunities (image: Tesla).
The Cybertruck is most definitely a showpiece, a halo car (truck), a statement. It’s not even remotely practical the way a pickup truck should be. We’ve watched multiple videos where some rather glaring issues with the Cybertruck have come to light. Range estimates aren’t accurate, panel gaps are evident, steering response is jittery, headlights are poor, and charging times are longer than claimed. Then there’s that finger chopper of a frunklid (25:52). Tesla isn’t exactly known for their stable pricing structure, either. When the truck debuted, Elon made the crowd-pleasing claim that the Cybertruck would be priced just under $40k for the base, rear-wheel drive version. It’s now priced on the Tesla website for just under $61k. That pretty much ties the the Ford F-150 Lighting’s price increase over the past year.
Sci-fi movie camping. Also, good luck finding a charging station out there (image: Tesla).
Tesla had the nerve to show a photo of construction workers using the Cybertruck. We’re pretty sure no dedicated, hard-working blue-collar guy (or gal) wants to be seen on the job site driving a Cybertruck. Didn’t Elon learn anything from the angled bedsides of the first-generation Honda Ridgeline? That’s not gonna fly. But if you make the Cybertruck like a traditional pickup truck, then why make it at all? Look how Telsa disrupted the automotive industry. He made EVs that looked like nothing else on the road, inside or out… and the industry followed suit with their teardrop/bar of soap/minimalist designs. Hell, Chris Bangle’s “flame surfacing” styling of the 2001 BMW 7-Series was almost universally maligned by automotive journalists, but it pervaded the industry a decade later.
Maybe it’s the project architect’s Cybertruk, and this guy is hijacking some power (image: Tesla).
Pioneers and disruptors are known for that kind of thing. That said, the Cybertruck does a few things well, but that’s not enough to keep it in play. It has to alter the public’s thinking about what a pickup truck can be, rather than what it should be. The design of a traditional pickup truck is definitely form follows function. The Cybertruck flips that approach and compromises in multiple areas, build-quality notwithstanding. It also has its strong points: it’s spacious, durable, and its battery can power up tools, campsites, other EVs, and even homes in an emergency. But, pretty much every electric pickup truck can do that these days. Musk’s version, however, has advantage over more practical versions… a network of over 1,500 supercharging stations (almost 22k supercharging ports, not all of which work) in America.
The Cybertruck could very well define the next generation of pickup truck, but it has a lot to overcome. It needs more range, a circular steering wheel, better steering, better headlights, improved sound deadening, and more than one color choice. That said, the Cybertruck has so much presence and momentum in the culture that it goes beyond the automotive space. Love or hate Elon Musk, there’s no question that the Cybertruck makes people talk, and that’s more than what most automakers get the vast majority of the time. The Cybertruck should not have been built. Are we glad it was? Yes. Will we buy one? Never.