The Tesla Cybertruck Was Too Caustic To Win
The Tesla Cybertruck is controversial. You know this. I know this. Even the most dyed-in-the-wool Tesla loyalist would understand that the truck rubs a lot of people the wrong way. It’s also fair to say that’s especially true over the past few weeks and months, as the Cybertruck has become a rolling symbol of the politics of Tesla’s CEO and his big ideas for how America should be run.
Gallery: 2024 Breakthrough Award Nominee: The Tesla Cybertruck
But it would’ve been intellectually dishonest if we hadn’t thrown it in the running for the inaugural InsideEVs Breakthrough Awards. This is an important vehicle.
(Welcome to The Breakthrough Awards, InsideEVs' year-end awards program recognizing the EVs, people and technologies that are paving the way for our clean energy transition. Read about the awards and the other contenders below.)
Why We Nominated The Tesla Cybertruck For Breakthrough EV Of The Year
It’s the most well-known EV launch this year. Suppose we ignore the cringe stories of clout-chasing owners and influencers spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in hopes that social media posts will make them millionaires. In that case, you’ll realize that the Cybertruck is full of a lot of industry firsts.
CEO Elon Musk may have underdelivered compared to the supremely outlandish concept shown off in 2019—the final product is more expensive, less capable and with less range than promised—but the tech on the roads in the production version of the Cybertruck is still pretty groundbreaking.
When Musk infamously unveiled the concept truck with its theoretically bulletproof-yet-can’t-withstand-a-metal-ball side glass, the world was convinced that it was far too impractical and not technically feasible. Yet, he and the team at Tesla did it: the wedge-shaped truck made of stainless steel made it to market just as we had seen four years before. Its windows are normal automotive glass, sure, but the design looks mostly the same.
Let’s give Tesla some credit for actually making something this outlandish. It looks like nothing on the road, prompting some to assert that the company has finally made the future look like the future. Soon, they figured, it would only be a matter of time before other EV manufacturers emulated the Cybertruck’s look, and we’d all be in a future where we’d all be driving in bulletproof stainless steel electric obelisks that looked like they drove right out of the Blade Runner set. Right?
Eh, let’s hold our horses here. It’s clear that there were some design concessions Tesla needed to make to get the Cybertruck on the road. Musk himself admitted that. Some big ideas got left on the shop floor. The truck’s proportions and dimensions changed quite a bit, turning the vehicle’s style and stance from a cool lunar rover to something akin to a shopping cart wearing worn-out orthopedic shoes.
The semi-structural exo-skeleton gave way to somewhat conventional stainless steel panels that aren’t all that easy to repair. The targeted $39,995 price magically became more like $100,000 when it finally dropped, though it’s since gone down and even more affordable variants are supposedly coming. But where the hell is the Cyberquad or the electric range extender? What about the Basecamp, which was supposed to be a futuristic camper shell and is, in fact, just a tent? In so many key areas, this truck failed to deliver.
Yet it also broke new ground in other ways. It launched with a first in the industry: a steer-by-wire variable steering system with no mechanical backup. It uses a 48-volt architecture for its non-EV-related accessory bits, something that even Ford CEO Jim Farley says the industry is likely to move toward, as it could tangibly increase vehicle efficiency. The Cybertruck even eschews the typical CANBUS communications protocol found on other vehicles for a single super-fast electronic data system that links all components through one wire.
In a world where "high-tech" has lost its meaning much of the time, the Cybertruck's innovations are a good reminder of what that actually entails.
What We Thought About The Tesla Cybertruck Platform
Is it worth the hype, though? The InsideEVs Breakthrough Awards panel was decidedly mixed on the Cybertruck’s driving dynamics and impact on the EV market.
Some agreed with me.
“It’s incredibly smooth, the software is excellent, the seats are comfortable, the minimalism-meets-brutalism interior is more upscale than it looks, and Tesla’s one-pedal driving is still probably the best in the business," Editor-in-Chief Patrick George said.
Contributing Editor Tom Moloughney, Deputy Editor Mack Hogan and Senior Reporter Tim Levin also agreed that the Cybertruck’s driving dynamics were nice. However, when it came to the technologies and design decisions that Tesla intentionally made for the vehicle, it wasn’t clear if the Cybertruck was better for it.
For example, every single one of us on the panel complained about the truck’s build quality. Unlike other publications, which may have one unit to share between a fleet of staffers in one geographic location, the InsideEVs panel was pretty well distributed across the country.
We all had different Cybertruck units, and every single one of us complained about poor fit, half-working features and just an overall rickety feeling truck.
In California, contributor Abigail Bassett wrote that “about 50% of the time, [the truck] wouldn’t open either from the outside or the inside and the one I had had less than 1000 miles on it.” That’s bad. Testing an example in its native Texas, Patrick was stunned at how visibly uneven the tailgate was against the frame. Astounding, considering the truck’s been in full production for about a year now.
Then, when it came time for the Cybertruck to actually be a truck, it fell flat. I tried hauling an engine to the junkyard and got frustrated with how fragile the truck felt and how unusually hard thing it was to load the bed. The truck’s rear end may raise and lower, but the bed itself is oddly shaped, with high sills and no steps to help someone get in the back. Mack said the Cybertruck’s design made it compromised off-road, and it didn’t do anything better than the F-150 Lighting or Rivian R1T in that context.
Despite those mixed sentiments, the Cybertruck likely could have stayed in the running as a potential winner. I’ve tested more than a dozen EVs from China this year alone. I hate to admit it, but comparatively, our EV market is starved for real innovation and choice, and other nominees feel like they’re so easy to outdo. The Cybertruck is far more innovative on a technical level, but there’s more to our decision here than just technical innovation.
Why The Cybertruck Isn’t our Pick for the Breakthrough EV of the Year
Ultimately, we all had to step back and think hard about what we were voting for. For this award, we wanted to nominate cars that move the needle on EV adoption. The car that would win would be something that gets more average drivers out of their ICE cars and into EVs. To be fair, Cybertruck probably has done that, but not on a huge scale. It’s too expensive to have wide appeal, and even worse, it’s just too socially caustic.
Whether it’s the truck’s design, Musk himself or the way the political world is shaking out right now, it’s impossible to divorce this truck from the context from whence it came. There are so many social and societal reasons to feel concerned about the proliferation of this truck. Everything about it portends an apocalyptic vibe, a dismal vision of the future; Musk has even admitted as much. That’s quite a turn from a company that once built its reputation on making the world a better, cleaner place, and now seemingly exists for the sake of its own market cap.
EVs should be accessible, affordable, useful and nice; the Cybertruck isn’t really any of these things. It’s not even clear if its technological advances made it a better truck. And for all the advancements this car makes to EV tech, we’re dismayed that Tesla’s focus is now wholly on robotaxis and less on more affordable and accessible models that can better drive wider electric adoption.
For what it’s worth, I still voted for the Cybertruck to win. I was the lone vote for the truck compared to the otherwise unanimous winner of our award. However, I respect my colleagues, who clearly stated their reasons for not thinking the Cybertruck was worthy of top billing. I don’t disagree with them, and I was more than happy to accept their verdict.
So no, the Cybertruck didn’t win. The sum isn’t greater than the parts here; the technical breakthroughs on the truck aren’t making it a better truck. It actually might be worse off.
Contact the author: Kevin.Williams@InsideEVs.com
2024 Tesla Cybertruck Specs
