Reviewing Tesla Cybertruck

 

The Tesla Cybertruck, of course. Less a vehicle, more an A-list celebrity, hounded by the public and press wherever it goes. Every move recorded, every morsel of information chewed and inflated, every quote twisted and reinterpreted until none of it makes any sense. It’s a self-fuelling frenzy because every mention sends clicks rocketing, every picture gets social media fizzing – either with anger or excitement.

From the moment the Cybertruck concept was revealed to several billion gasps in 2019, with Elon Musk’s promises of production kicking off in 2021 and a $40k starting price, it’s lurched from one very public problem to another. Design Director, Franz von Holzhausen, smashing the ‘unbreakable’ windows with a metal ball on stage was just a taste of things to come.

There followed multiple delays, leaked engineering reports citing woeful soundproofing and dangerous brakes, Elon’s now famous email to employees insisting the Cybertruck be “built to sub 10-micron accuracy [because] if LEGO and soda cans, which are very low cost, can do this, so can we,” as prototypes with panels gaps like rugby posts were rolling around on public roads. Finally, there was Elon’s admission that “we dug our own grave with the Cybertruck” and they probably won’t hit fully ramped-up production of 200,000+ trucks a year at Giga Texas until 2025.

Stop rolling your eyes at the back. Customer deliveries began at the end of November 2023, and choices include the 845bhp ‘Cyberbeast’ tri-motor version we drove, costing $99,990 with a range of 320-miles, and a $79,990 AWD dual motor version with 600bhp, 340-miles range and 0-60mph in 3.9 seconds. In 2025 a RWD-only single motor will arrive with 250-mile range and 0-60mph in 6.5s. You can have it in any colour you like, so long as it's bare stainless steel, and the entry price is $60,990 for that single motor truck.

The tri-motor features two induction motors on the rear axle, and a permanent magnet motor on the front (the tri-motor Model S Plaid is all permanent magnet). It can crack 0-60mph in 2.6 seconds, do an 11-second quarter mile, it weighs 3,100kg and has a 123kWh battery - Tesla’s biggest yet. Claimed range of 320 miles is roughly in-line with the Ford F-150 Lightning, although Tesla will offer an optional plug-and-play 50kWh battery extender - essentially the pack from a standard range Model 3 - that bolts into the bed and takes away a third of your cargo space, but extends the range to 440 miles (470 for the AWD version).

The powertrain, which runs on an 800V architecture - a Tesla first - will charge at up to 350kW if you can find a V4 Supercharger, and is entirely designed and built in house by Tesla.

For this we must defer to design boss Franz von Holzhausen: “We started unpacking existing pick-up trucks and realised that the market hasn't changed at all. In the early days we had a Lotus Esprit in the studio, the submarine car, and then started looking at what else was in this simplistic, angular theme; stuff like the F-117 Nighthawk and the Countach.

“Like Gandini, we wanted to do something dramatic that changed everything. I had this simple idea right in the beginning, this exoskeleton idea, a low-resolution looking type of truck. And out of that side project we made a full-size clay model to show Elon. And he's like, ‘that's what we're doing.’”

From an engineering perspective Lars Moravy, VP vehicle engineering, had a slightly different take: “When it was first introduced there was a lot of consternation because when you look at the shape, the stainless steel and Elon threw in that it had to drive like a sports car but have all the utility of a pick-up truck… basically, we were sweating bullets.”

Stainless steel panels bolted directly onto a steel monocoque forming a literally bullet-proof exoskeleton. A truck that wears its toughness on the outside… is the elevator pitch. As ever, getting Elon and Franz’s Delorean-gets-jiggy-with-a-F-150 vision to actually work, was easier said than done.

Turns out it's really hard to bend stainless steel, and when you do bend it, you get orange peel marks on the crease and here there's no paint to hide it. There's no stamping, the steel can only bend in one direction, so Tesla had to invent something new: a process called Airbending where they float the tool on a sort of high-pressure air hockey table, so it's not actually touching the surface when bending it.

The steel used is a special grade because stainless is not actually stain proof, it corrodes over time so they had to add various elements to the mix to make it resistant, get that full hardness and have just enough ductility to bend it. The big benefit though is supercar-like torsional stiffness of 45kNm/deg. There’s no “hemming” though, where you “wrap the outer around the inner like in a traditional panel”, Franz von Holzhausen explains, which means all the edges are exposed. They’re chamfered of course, to avoid dicing your fingers, but it takes some getting used to. Put it this way, you wouldn't want to slip in your garage and meet certain corners on the way down. Only one piece has a strip of rubber to protect you: the bottom edge of the frunk. Because when open it’s bang on head height.

The bare metal and flat surfaces look spectacular in soft light, but attract fingerprints like moths to a flame, and in harsh, direct light you notice a rippling effect on the largest flat surfaces. Fear not internet, the tolerances and alignment have tightened for production, but there are quirks in the way the panels meet, look and feel (the way the bottom of the A-pillar buts up against the front quarter panel is particularly challenging). But it is built differently, and should celebrate the fact.

We are yet to test the Cybertruck off-road beyond a dusty lay-by, but the ingredients sound promising. Stuff like air suspension that has a range of 12 inches (for maximum possible ground clearance of 17.4 inches) and all-terrain tyres fitted as standard (although you can opt for more efficient and marginally quieter road-biased rubber if you prefer, we’d stick with the all-rounders). There’s an electronic diff so you can lock up the front axle, but with two motors on the rear axle controlling each wheel individually you don’t need one at the back, which does wonders for true ground clearance.

Beyond the standard ‘Off-road’ mode there’s a ‘Baja’ setting with a front/rear torque split slider for when only fast and really quite loose will do. The engineers were raving about its jumping ability when they took it for a hoon in Mexico. It can tow up to five tonnes, which will slice your range at least in half, so the extra battery pack is a must.