Tesla Cybertruck Review: Already Iconic?

- The most dangerous thing about the Tesla Cybertruck

is not the pointy edges and corners.

It's not the fact that it weighs over three tons

and goes from zero to 60 miles an hour

faster than a Corvette.

It's not even the way that reflections

glare off the stainless steel

and can blind people on the highway.

No, the most dangerous thing about the Cybertruck

is the way it makes other people

around you on the road behave.

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Okay, I genuinely can't tell if the Cybertruck

is good looking or not, and I'm being completely serious.

Like if you just check the comment section online,

it's actually mostly negative.

Most people are saying it looks horrible.

It looks like a refrigerator on wheels.

It's a disaster of a design.

But once you start living with this thing,

you drive around with it and you talk to people about it

who have never heard of it,

they're saying things like, "This is crazy.

This is like a movie prop.

It's sci-fi, looks something alien."

So there's a lot to it.

Here, first of all, stainless steel and black plastic.

That's mostly what you're working with here.

And the front, I think it has a good angle.

To be honest, I'm a sucker for a light bar,

but the actual headlights are down here

so they stay outta people's eyes.

In general, it's like a square jawline,

no curves, just angles.

But the back, the back not so much.

You know, it's still technically a bar, yes,

but it's a little bit dinker in my opinion.

And also just tons of black plastic in the back.

Really high tailgate.

I'm getting like, dump truck vibes from back here.

I don't think I'm the only one.

I just, I don't think the back is its best angle.

But if I had to narrow it down,

I'm pretty sure the most iconic profile is the side.

And the two elements of this truck

that really stand out are this slope, these high shoulders,

and then the pointy corners on the other side.

See, most pickup trucks have basically this general shape.

It's the traditional pickup truck look.

And so we're not used to seeing this angle right here

and this huge slope right here.

It's unusual, it's weird, it's very visually interesting.

So I've been living with the Cybertruck

for about a month now, well over 1,500 miles.

And you notice a couple things.

First of all, people, whenever you go park somewhere,

always wanna come up to you and talk about it.

Naturally, I've entertained a lot of these conversations

'cause they're fun.

And they usually say two things.

One, you'd be surprised

how many people have never heard of the Cybertruck.

I know for us online people, people watching this video,

you're like, how could anyone have not heard

of the Tesla Cybertruck?

But you'd be shocked.

And two, most people just want to know,

how much does that thing cost?

And I got asked that so many times,

eventually I just started having people guess.

And 100% of the people who guessed were too high.

People were guessing $250, $300K, $180K, $150K.

They're all way over.

But you know, how could they know?

They don't know what the rest of the truck is.

They've just seen this thing

they've never seen for the first time.

And so I guess the conclusion is the looks

are really distracting people from the rest

of what makes the Cybertruck, the Cybertruck.

Okay, let's play a little game.

I'm going to name a feature

and all you have to do is think about it for a second

and think about if you believe it's overrated or underrated.

And then I, someone who's been driving this truck,

will tell you the real answer.

So first feature, steer by wire.

I've seen a few good pieces cover

what's actually happening here,

talking about the complete physical disconnect

between the steering wheel you're holding

and the wheels that are moving under the truck.

Instead, it's a bunch of sensors reacting to your input

like a video game controller.

But combined with the variable steering ratio

and the four wheel steering,

this is the most nimble, agile-feeling truck

that I have ever driven.

And I don't think a lot of people realize that.

So I'm going underrated.

It's one of those things where Tesla definitely

didn't have to do this.

Like, they've made their headlines already with the looks.

It could just be a Model 3 underneath.

But they went through the extra measures

and the extra engineering

to ship a full steer by wire system

and all the redundancies that come with making it safe.

I believe they're the first ones to do this.

But the variable steering ratio is really

what gives it all of its utility.

So at low speeds, the ability

to turn really quickly gets dialed up.

It's a much more responsive-feeling steering wheel.

So if I want to turn right here, I only have to give it

what, half a turn, a quarter turn,

and I'm fully maneuvering.

The way you can pull into parking spots

and make 90 degree turns and everything

is a total game changer.

But then at highway speeds it softens that ratio a lot.

So you have a little bit of steering input

to sort of glide left and right between different lanes.

It's much more subtle.

You kind of need that.

But then on top of that, throw in the four wheel steering.

So four wheel steering is not new,

lots of vehicles have done it.

But the amount of steer

that you get from these rear wheels is pretty dramatic

to the point where you can look in the mirrors

and see those wheels turning.

And this can also be adjusted with software.

But that really lets this huge truck basically pivot

around a much smaller axis.

The steering ratio now I think gives it

the same steering circle as a Model S,

but it feels really, really impressive

just because of how big the actual vehicle is.

It definitely takes some getting used to.

You can't ignore that fact.

But once you get used to it,

you literally feel like when you go back to like, an F-150

or any other truck where you have

all this hand over hand steering to do the K turns,

that feels weird, it feels archaic.

It feels like you shouldn't have to do that.

So again, Tesla definitely didn't have to do that,

but just the way you can drive it like a smaller car

and really point the nose,

I don't know, it's definitely underrated.

All right, next feature, bulletproof stainless steel,

overrated or underrated?

I'm going with, you probably saw this one coming,

I'm going with overrated.

Now look, first of all I get it.

Obviously having a very durable truck

is super useful of course.

But bulletproof up to nine millimeter rounds?

(Marques thumping truck)

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Yeah, I'm not gonna test that.

But you know, there are some other YouTubers out there

who totally will.

And apparently it can literally stop smaller rounds

without being punctured.

But also, the glass windows aren't bulletproof,

they're more of just stronger than regular glass.

And then it's regular wheels, regular tires

that can still get slashed.

So don't go getting any ideas

that this thing is invincible or anything like that.

But clearly, cold rolled stainless steel alloy

is going to be much stronger

than the regular outside of the vehicle.

So that's the shopping cart in the back of the parking lot,

that's fender benders.

Or if someone hits you, you'll be fine.

You'll be fine.

But guess what?

It also means your truck is now made

of an extremely fingerprinting material.

And it also doesn't have normal door handles

so you just cannot keep it clean

if you use this thing daily.

And then steel just happens to be really hard to manipulate.

Apparently Tesla had to create new machines strong enough

to stamp this material together.

There's a reason why there aren't a bunch

of other cars rolling around looking like this.

So when I say in the Auto Focus review

that low VIN Cybertrucks

will have low VIN production issues,

that's not actually new to Tesla.

They've had to spin up manufacturing for different types

of vehicles before,

and usually the first few thousand of them aren't pretty.

But then they learn from those issues

and then one or two years down the road

they're making millions of the thing

and they're much better quality controlled.

So this particular Cybertruck

is the dual motor all-wheel drive.

This was borrowed from Ridge.

Shout out to Ridge by the way.

I'll leave a link below if you aren't caught up

on my partnership with them.

But on delivery, this one had a pretty big panel gap

on the driver's side door.

And you know, I never really care about panel gaps,

but this one in particular actually started growing

and getting worse.

It literally looked like the door was open,

and then it started making weird noises while closing.

Until one day it actually broke.

So turns out it wasn't a panel gap,

it was actually a manufacturing issue where the bolts

that hold this latch in place

were actually not torqued tight enough

and they loosened over time and it fell out.

And so Miles actually had the bright idea

to just gaffe tape the latch securely back in place.

And now when you close the door, lines up perfectly.

So Elon Musk addressed this on Twitter after my video.

Apparently only 15 trucks had this issue,

so lucky me, I guess.

So if you are one of the few,

then you can apparently just take this

to a Tesla service center

and they'll be able to fix it in no time

as long as you get an appointment.

The Cyberbeast that I took delivery of under my name

has been flawless so far.

But I think the point I'm trying to make is

these early Cybertrucks, as with any other early Tesla,

they're going to find,

I guarantee you, more issues like this.

And they'll work on 'em and fix 'em.

But yeah, this Foundation Series badge right here,

kind of clouted in the Tesla community

'cause it basically means you got one of the first few.

But it also kind of means willing beta tester in a way.

So you know, these materials and this new stamping technique

and all this should eventually make the vehicles

much easier to produce en masse, and cheaper.

But that's eventually, eventually.

All right, next feature, truck stuff.

I'm talking about the theoretical reasons why someone

would logically buy a truck over any other vehicle

like a van or an SUV or a car.

And that would be for towing, hauling and off-roading.

And I know it looks like this truck would be amazing

at all of that stuff, but I'm gonna say

that this one, it's overrated.

It's overrated here, and I'll tell you why.

Now, don't get me wrong, the Cybertruck, very capable.

It's much more capable than any other Tesla, obviously.

I can confirm it handles winter weather really well.

Like it has heated windshield wiper and the heated mirrors

and the door can in fact open in icy weather.

They added a wade mode

that lifts the suspension all the way up

and pressurizes the battery so that you can drive

through really deep water.

It's insane.

And it also has off-road driving modes

and towing modes right here in the settings.

There's also only one wheel and tire option

right now with Cybertruck.

Every single Cybertruck ships

with the same Goodyear Territory Wrangler RT Tire, whatever.

It's a pretty popular tire

and they ship them on, you know, Jeep Grand Cherokees

and F-150s all the time.

And it's reinforced

and it's capable of some light off-roading.

But I think if we're being honest,

most people will be driving this thing mostly on the street,

like a glorified SUV.

So here's a number to think about, 63.

63% is the percent of truck drivers who admit to rarely

or never towing anything at all.

And that's just the ones that admit it.

Like, look at this chart.

This is from a survey of F-150 owners,

so the most popular truck in the country.

People are almost never actually towing with these things.

So before we leave a comment

that this thing sucks for towing, yeah, they know, we know.

Everyone buying it kind of should already know.

If you're buying a truck specifically for towing,

then you have a short list of trucks you're considering

and none of them are electric.

But I think my main realization with this thing

is there are millions of preorders for this thing right now.

Because it's Tesla, it's going to be very popular.

This is gonna be a lot of people's first truck

and it will come with all of the first truck realizations.

Like to a lot of people,

the Cybertruck looks absolutely huge,

but it's actually smaller than an F-150.

And these people, when they get the truck,

they'll think they're invincible and they can drive off road

and just go wherever they want without even thinking about

strategically going certain routes

or airing down the tires

that literally come at 50 PSI from the factory.

They're gonna start getting stuck in all sorts

of embarrassing situations, which means

of course then there will be countless articles

written about them

because of course no other truck has ever

been stuck in the snow before.

And it's just, sorry,

I'm definitely getting ahead of myself.

But look, we will be using a Cybertruck

at our video production studio for a lot of the same reasons

that we've used an R1T.

It's got a tow hitch, it's spacious, it hauls a lot of gear,

it's quick, it's quiet, it's great.

But I think the point I'm trying to make is

most of the millions of people who will end up

with these Cybertrucks eventually

are going to use them on the street

just like a glorified SUV

just 'cause they think this one looks cool.

And that's fine.

All right, next category, performance.

Overrated or underrated?

Well, you might have seen this little video

that Tesla did on their YouTube channel

racing the Cybertruck against a Porsche 911

while towing a 911 and beating that 911.

And that, that was a very clever video.

It's an ad, of course,

but it also takes advantage of the fact

that EVs all have this commoditization

of this enormous straight line performance,

great acceleration.

Anyone can get it.

But you know, I'd normally never compare a pickup truck

to a sports car, right?

But well, we're here.

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So like most drag races, this one was just for fun.

But while we have some time at this drag strip,

we did a bunch of these, we did back to back to back races.

And it shed a lot of light on Tesla's video

and on the Cybertruck in general.

So first of all, EVs are quick, right?

We've known this for years.

Ludicrous mode, Plaid mode, Beast mode.

This is not new information.

But cars with gears can be faster.

So there's a difference between quick and fast.

So when you go to a real drag strip with timing equipment

and all that stuff, you get one of these after.

This is a time slip.

Breaks down in both lanes,

not just the end of the 1/4 mile

but multiple points along the race.

And so I've expanded it here.

So this was the triple motor Cybertruck's best run,

one of the first runs.

It runs a 10.9 second 1/4 mile,

which if you don't know, is absolutely ridiculous.

There are bonafide sports cars that don't run in the 10s.

And for a 7,000 pound pickup truck

to do it on all terrain tires is just kind of hilarious.

But when you actually look at and break down

each of these times, this shows the difference

between quick and fast.

So first of all, off the launch,

just from zero miles an hour,

the Cyberbeast with its triple motors

and with its 1000 hertz traction control

managing slip at the rear wheels basically in real time

is able to explode off the line

through the first 60 feet of the race

faster than the 911 Turbo S,

one of the fastest-launching cars ever made.

Now from there, it holds that lead,

continues putting down all of this power

all the way out to 330 feet.

So you can see that at 330 feet,

4.4 versus 4.5, it's still out ahead.

But by the time you get to 660 feet,

which is roughly halfway through the race,

that's when the 911 has changed gears twice

and continues to pull.

And this is when it shifts

and passes the truck around halfway through the race.

Physics just takes over,

and the lighter car with many more gears continues to shift.

It passes the truck.

Crazy enough, the Cybertruck hits

its 114 mile an hour electronically limited top speed,

probably 'cause of the tires,

well before the end of the 1/4 mile,

while my child, I mean the car,

continues to pull into the 140s.

No, it's not stock.

Now Tesla made this video that I've talked about,

and they wanted to showcase the Cyberbeast

against a Porsche 911.

And they know all of this

so they had to get clever, I'll say.

So if you haven't seen it, I'll link it below.

Their video shows the Cybertruck pulling up to the line.

It's racing a Porsche 911.

It beats the 911 in a drag race

and then it's revealed

that it was towing a 911 the whole time.

So they're saying you can beat one while towing one.

And then it flashes the 1/4 mile time

on the screen, 11 seconds.

So first of all, there's about 50 different models

and variations of the Porsche 911.

So just based on what we saw

and from the performance in the video, I'm gonna guess

that they went with the cheapest

and slowest possible 911.

So that would be the 911 Carrera T.

It's a manual transmission.

It does zero to 60 in around 4.3 seconds.

So now the Cybertruck with its 2.6 second zero to 60

has a massive advantage.

And so they're able to handicap it

by having it tow the 911, like 3,000 pounds.

Okay, so then they run the race.

And if you watch the video, they run it out

to this yellow mark right here.

Which it turns out

is actually the halfway point of the drag strip.

So shout out to Engineering Explained

for doing the math on this one.

I'll leave the video below.

But it turns out the Carrera T, thanks to its gearbox,

is still eventually faster than a Cybertruck,

especially if it's towing 3,000 pounds,

but it's really an 1/8 mile race

that they're showcasing here,

and then they quote the 1/4 mile time at the end

as if they ran a 1/4 mile race.

But as we've learned today, quick, fast.

People will point out that difference

but I'll let it slide.

It's just a drag race, it's fun,

it's not that huge of a deal.

But I will say, if you can,

from stoplight to stoplight be just as quick

as basically any other car in a 7,000 pound truck,

that's incredible, that's hilarious, that's really fun.

But hopefully, at least now you understand why I'm saying

performance is a bit overrated.

It's more of a one trick pony in a straight line.

Now that one trick is very fun

and very appealing to certain people.

There are people every day who pick the F-150 Raptor

over the F-150 for stuff like this.

But you know, then you get to a turn and it's a truck again.

But also one more thing I just wanna highlight,

again, in our best run we got 10.995 seconds

in the Cybertruck.

Is this the fastest?

Is this the world record

for fastest Cybertruck 1/4 mile?

I haven't seen any faster, so lemme know if you do.

But shout out to Miles, the driver mod.

I think we might have a world record here.

All right, the 800 volt architecture

and the 48 volt low voltage system,

both new to the Cybertruck.

I'm going underrated, if only for the fun fact that this,

this is technically the lightest fully electric pickup truck

in the world.

Which is not the highest bar to clear.

But yes, thanks to the lesser wire weight,

it is lighter than the Hummer EV.

It's also lighter than the F-150 Lightning.

And it is lighter than the dramatically smaller Rivian R1T.

So that's an accomplishment.

I was also hoping it would charge like,

just as fast or faster than other Teslas.

But it seems right in line, you know,

250 kilowatts out of V3 Superchargers

for about the first 1/3 of the curve.

You know, it looks like less as far as miles per hour

that you're adding to the battery,

but that's including driving efficiency.

Which is, thanks to the aerodynamics of a refrigerator,

not great.

Now I also wanna give a shout out

specifically to the suspension,

just the suspension on the Cybertruck,

which I think is underrated.

First of all, there's a huge amount of travel

between the lowest and firmest

and the highest and softest settings.

And no one's gonna say this thing drives like a sports car,

but it is pretty impressively low and firm

in its lowest setting,

and it's very high,

and it can move between those low

and high settings really quickly.

And I was also very impressed

by how little roll and yaw there was.

Typically a big truck, you hit accelerate

and the nose comes up a lot.

This one goes up a little.

Not bad.

But then also we gotta talk about, just for a second,

Tesla's minimalism.

Because it's kind of a staple of Teslas at this point,

especially with the Cybertruck here with the design.

But also on the inside and with materials

and the choices they make.

I think a lot of us would agree

that a physical button in a lot of ways

is better than a digital button.

I don't think that's a hot take.

But one of the reasons

Tesla's been so successful business wise

over the past couple years in such a competitive market

is because they've figured out a way

to make a profit on every vehicle,

and they minimize all of the extra pieces,

all of the moving parts.

And they've gotten rid of a lot of buttons.

Actually, they've gotten rid of basically

every button in the Cybertruck.

But because of Tesla's success,

I feel like auto manufacturers have started to copy

a lot of what Tesla does,

to the detriment of some of their vehicles.

I would've liked to have seen in the Cybertruck,

this big special vehicle, maybe a cool key fob

that has access to a button to open the front trunk,

or maybe real climate control buttons.

Or maybe, we all know they should have done a mirror

that's actually a screen

so you can see out the back of the truck

without looking down at the screen.

But they didn't do that.

So I'm saying Tesla's minimalism, kind of overrated here.

But I also do need you to know

that despite all the other interesting technical stuff

that I've talked about in this video,

this is still a Tesla under the hood,

and all of the things that we love about that

and all the other stuff that comes with it.

That means it works with Tesla Superchargers

all over the country.

That also means it has a super heavy

123 kilowatt-hour battery in the floor.

It means that the quiet interior of the vehicle

makes the speaker system sound way better

than it probably should.

And it also means a bunch of things

are missing about these early trucks as they deliver them.

The super heavy additional range extender battery

in the back isn't shipping yet,

and nobody knows when it will.

The screen also has no CarPlay or Android Auto,

but the software is really good and super fast.

But there's also no Autopilot right now,

even if you paid for it.

No light bar right now, even if you paid for it.

No aero caps right now, and you did pay for those.

The locking differential at the rear axle doesn't work

in the dual motor version of this truck yet.

And there's only one tire option, for a truck!

All of these are decisions that Tesla makes

knowing the priorities of the probable buyers,

the millions of pre-orders of the Cybertruck.

They know what people are probably going to do with these.

They know what people think they're going to do with these.

And they know what people want

when they buy one of these things.

It's a Tesla under the hood.

So I was driving to the studio the other day,

and on my way there I'm coming up over this hill,

and on the other side of the hill

is this biker across the street.

And as I came over the hill, he looked up

and he saw the truck for about two seconds.

And then he reached out and he just did this

as he biked past me.

But later that same night,

I was on my way home from practice

around the bridge somewhere in New York City at night.

And slowing down in traffic,

this car pulls up next to me, kind of in front of me

and all four of the windows roll down

and these super happy faces all stick out

and just like, give me thumbs up

and they're grinning the entire time.

And I'd say that's about the ratio of joy

to absolute disgust

that you bring into the world

driving the Cybertruck around, it's probably like 80-20.

So what's the verdict with the Cybertruck, right?

I think there's a lot going on between those four corners,

a lot of interesting choices and materials and technologies

and steer by wire and 800 volt systems and all this stuff.

But a lot of it frankly is overshadowed by the design again.

So we keep coming back to the design.

And I feel like we can use that word again, iconic.

I would say as a product person,

I do think this is already an iconic design.

Now, that comes with a lot of baggage.

I feel like when you say that word,

it's kind of like joining the rare air

of like, the bedroom poster of some on some kid's wall.

It's like the Lamborghini Countach or the Bugatti Veyron

or something like a Tesla Cybertruck.

But the thing about those iconic cars

is they're also almost always rare.

And that's the thing, it's like if you saw a Bugatti Veyron

on the street, that's probably the only Bugatti Veyron

you're gonna see on the street for a long time.

There's not that many Lamborghini Countaches

out on the world.

Now the Cybertruck today is super rare.

And there's all these articles about, you know,

celebrities driving them around.

And when you see one, it's an event.