The IT Nerd

The Tesla Cybertruck. It’s years late. It’s more expensive than promised. And apparently it’s not as capable as Elon Musk said it was going to be. Here’s the details via The Verge:

Tesla claims the $99,990 tri-motor “Cyberbeast” went from zero to 60 miles per hour in just 2.6 seconds and completed the quarter-mile race in less than 11 seconds. But was that really the case? In a video posted last week, YouTuber Engineering Explained calls out Musk for peddling what appears to be exaggerations about the Cybertruck’s capabilities.

For one, channel owner Jason Fenske says the Cybertruck doesn’t actually complete the full quarter-mile race in the demo — instead, Tesla ends the race at the one-eighth mile marker. Fenske points out that both vehicles are only “halfway to the timing boards” when Tesla shows the view of the Porsche and Cybertruck crossing the finish line side by side.

That suggests they only completed one-eighth of a mile, as the timing boards are typically placed at the end of the quarter-mile strip. Fenske found some additional evidence supporting this, too, and even measured the length of the track on Google Maps using landmarks from the video.

This isn’t the only potential discrepancy Cybertruck owners have found so far, now that the vehicle is being delivered to buyers. Another YouTuber, Kyle Conner from Out of Spec Motoring, held a livestream to test the Cybertruck’s range. At the end of the five-hourlong stream, Conner found that the Foundation Series dual-motor model only got around 254 miles of range after a full charge — quite lower than the 320-mile range promised by Tesla. The cold might’ve had something to do with the lower-than-expected range, though, as Conner took it out on a highway in around 45-degree weather. Cold weather can significantly reduce an EV’s range.

Meanwhile, over at the Cybertruck Owners Club forum, one user has found that towing a heavy load severely limits the range of the vehicle, which is expected. In their tests, they used their all-wheel drive Cybertruck to tow a Tesla Model Y on a trailer weighing in at a total of around 6,000 pounds. The driver got just around 111 miles on an 84 percent charge before the Cybertruck’s battery petered out.

And there’s this:

The Cybertruck might not be as rugged as Musk describes it, either. A post on Reddit offers a glimpse of the Cybertruck’s owner’s manual, which similar to Tesla’s other vehicles, suggests that owners should “immediately remove corrosive substances,” including grease, oil, bird poop, road salt, dead insects, and other materials from the exterior of the car to “prevent damage.” But the Cybertruck also doesn’t have clear coat — something most cars come with to help protect the paint against damage from the sun and minor scratches. 

That’s why Tesla notes “any scratches that appear are in the stainless steel panels themselves.” All of this doesn’t quite add up to the Cybertruck being the otherworldly beast capable of going off-road and being “built for any planet,” especially when apparent software issues stranded this Cybertruck in the snow. The Cybertruck might not even be the most practical pickup for here on Earth.

Honestly. Is anyone surprised that Elon was just saying anything to sell a few of these pickup trucks? At this point I’m hoping that Cybertruck owners sue Elon for false advertising.

What Elon really doesn’t get is that a story like this will be seen in Dearborn Michigan where Ford is willing to sell your an F150 Lightning which is an electric pickup truck that does real truck things seeing as it’s based on a existing pickup truck platform. Not to mention over at Stellantis who have an electric version of their RAM 1500 pickup truck incoming which is again an electric pickup truck based on an existing pickup truck platform that does real truck things. Both of these companies have another thing in common. Both of them will try not to be Elon and Tesla by over promising and under delivering as both Ford and Stellantis know that’s a great way to tick off your customers and ensure that they never set foot into your dealership ever again. Perhaps Elon should have read that memo. But of course, we all know that he’s not smart enough to do that.

This entry was posted on January 18, 2024 at 9:03 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.