- Consumer Reports put out an early review for its dual-motor Tesla Cybertruck.
- While there are some areas where the Cybertruck is criticized, most of the review is pretty positive.
No matter your opinion on the Tesla Cybertruck, you can’t deny it’s a vehicle unlike any other. It’s not perfect, and between its Tesla-specific quirks as well as the Cybertruck’s design choices that limit practicality, it might not be for everyone, but Consumer Reports had mostly good things to say about it. For now, anyway.
The Cybertruck in CR’s fleet is a dual-motor Founders Series vehicle with $20,000 in extras and a total purchase price of $101,985, including destination charges. That’s a lot to pay for any pickup truck, especially one with sharp edges that can hurt you, imperfect body panels, and still limited semi-autonomous driving system access.
However, CR says it's innovative enough and does enough things right to be a recommendable vehicle, at least after the first 2,000 miles that they've put on the truck. It's an early look at the truck, not CR's usual in-depth review. It’s a first impressions video made shortly after they took delivery—there will be a much more in-depth Cybertruck review in the future.
The Cybertruck drives well enough, and it has plenty of performance in dual-motor guise, which will likely remain the entry-level variant after Tesla quietly removed the single-motor truck from its website. Some concessions were made for the sake of design, but it’s a thoroughly usable vehicle that does the things you expect from a truck pretty well.
It’s the first Tesla to run at 800 volts, which allows it to have the highest charging power out of all the models. What makes it unlike any other vehicle on the road is its steer-by-wire system, with no mechanical link between the steering wheel and the wheels. This allows for an infinitely variable steering ratio, and it eliminates the need to go hand over hand when steering from lock to lock, although it does take a bit of getting used to.
Tesla’s gamble with the Cybertruck seems to have paid off if we look at the sales figures. Earlier this year, in July, it was revealed that Tesla had delivered 5,175 Cybertrucks, which almost matched combined deliveries of the Ford F-150 Lightning, Rivian R1T, Chevrolet Silverado EV and GMC Hummer EV. So even though many still ridicule it, the Cybertruck is proving critics wrong with its surprisingly good sales performance.
Clarification: An earlier headline indicated that CR recommends the Cybertruck for now, but an editor at the publication clarified that this initially positive review is not the same as an official CR recommendation. The truck has not received that rating.
