Tesla Cybertruck Review

After all, Elon Musk's latest model rolls off the assembly line just outside the Texas capital, and since November 2023 a handful of customers have been coming to the factory every day to collect their angular, sci-fi pick-up truck. One of them was Shaheen Badiyan, who ordered the Cybertruck on the first day the order books were opened five years ago, and who’s now allowing us to spend a few hours with his car.

I approached the dazzling oddball with the same curiosity that everyone here has. After all, while no one looks twice at a normal truck in Texas, the Cybertruck gets everyone's attention. Passers-by stop and knock on the window (which is supposedly made of bulletproof glass) when we’re stopped at traffic lights, and on the highway the other drivers race for the best camera position with their cell phones out. Wherever you step out of the Cybertruck, you’re drawn into conversation with curious passers-by.

At 5.70 meters long, the Tesla Cybertruck is rather modest compared to its competitors; closer to the VW Amarok, rather than to the Ford F-150 that is part of the fabric of America’s culture and transport system – yet is comically huge, by European standards. 

Among all the classic pick-ups with their powerful grilles and wide-set stances, the sharp-edged stainless steel tank that I’m piloting looks as if a space cowboy has taken the wrong exit off the Milky Way. 

Just don’t look too closely if you don't want to spoil the fascination… After a week, Badiyan's truck is still free of the rust spots that are currently causing a stir on the Tesla forums. But even if the proud owner constantly polishes it, the steel shimmers in a wide variety of shades and shows some signs of staining.  

The disparate worlds of new- and old pick-up trucks continues inside the Cybertruck. Like every Tesla, the Cybertruck is furnished inside as frugally as a monastery cell. Ford, Chevy and co aim to impress with their plush, armchair-like seats, thick leather and chrome finishings all over - the only thing missing is a fireplace. But Tesla has kept the Cybertruck sparse, and tech-focussed on the large touchscreen. And that’s a good thing for many, but not so much for others who may feel the lack of the practical virtues that traditional pick-ups have developed over the decades. After all, the Cybertruck offers only a few open shelves for storage, a couple of cup holders between the seats - and there is a three-person rear bench with 90-degree opening doors, which help to give good access. Even so, there’s none of the centre-console storage cleverness of some rivals, nor the in-cabin sockets, fold-out step ladders under the loading area, huge storage compartments in the side walls… Sure, the Cybertruck has a large load bed, a small ‘frunk’, power outlets in the bed, and it has bi-directional charging so that you can power your house using your truck. But that alone doesn't make a practical commercial vehicle, and many would argue that the electric Ford F-150 Lightning is a more useful tool. 

Never mind. It won’t matter to many potential buyers – and certainly not for Shaheen Badiyan. After all, he's not a farmer, a tradesman or a cowboy; he makes his money from cybersecurity, and only bought the Cybertruck because it's so different, and because he has been a fan of electric vehicles for many years.

The basic Cybertruck is, in America, currently supposedly $60,990 with just a single electric motor on the rear axle and a battery that’s good for around 250 miles. That probably won’t be available until 2025 at the earliest, while the 833bhp ‘Cyberbeast’ with its insane sprint time of 2.6 seconds costs an impressive $99,990. Badiyan drives the happy medium between those two bookends – the Cybertruck AWD model, which costs $79,990 dollars (roughly £64,000).  

As usual with Tesla, the firm facts regards power, battery details and more are all held mysteriously out of the public eye. The vehicle registration for our Cybertruck AWD says 600bhp, and the official range is 340 miles. Estimates put the battery at 123kWh, but Shaheen Badiyan hasn’t needed to do a full recharge yet. "The wallbox at home is enough for me, I don't drive that far." That's why he decided against the range extender, which - at Tesla, of course - is not a combustion engine with a generator like we have in the Mazda MX-30 or earlier in the BMW i3. Instead, Tesla’s ‘range extender’ is an additional 50kWh battery pack that gives the Cybertruck an an extra 120 miles or so of range, for a total range of 460 miles. 

The Cybertruck is also the first Tesla to get 800V charging, so is capable of ultra-rapid charging speeds of up to 350kW, which would mean a 100-mile top-up in as little as five minutes.

Then Badiyan tells me his PIN, which I dutifully enter on the screen like on a cell phone and then embarrass myself because I'm looking around the steering wheel or somewhere else for a gear lever. You determine the direction of travel in the Cybertruck on the screen - just like you do on the new Tesla Model 3 - my laughing co-driver tells me with a shake of his head.

I swipe the car forward, and the Cybertruck beams me from what Elon Musk calls the automotive stone age into the future. John Cartwright from Ponderosa Ranch becomes Captain Kirk on the bridge of the Enterprise. All you hear is a whirring from the motors, and then you’re up at the Texas speed limit. After all, even with this beast being made of sheet metal, it’ll still do 62mph from rest in just 4.2 seconds – and it does so effortlessly, too. 

But, shortly afterwards, my enthusiasm wanes.  As practical as the standard air suspension may be for reducing the entry height, improving the wading depth or increasing the ground clearance to more than 40cm for off-road use, it struggles to deal with bumps in everyday use – and, unfortunately, there are plenty of rough road surfaces in Texas. Potholes make the car shake, and anyone who takes the endless inner-city speed bumps at more than walking speed will need to make an appointment with the dentist.

As if the minimal suspension comfort isn't enough, the steering also takes some getting used to. The combination of drive-by-wire technology (which means that there’s no mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the car’s axles) with variable gear ratio and moderate feedback, strong rear-axle steering, heavy-duty Goodyear tyres on 20-inch rims – not to mention the unpleasantly angular steering wheel – makes for some awkward moments, especially when manoeuvering and in city traffic. It takes a little practice, or at least some higher speeds, until the Cybertruck becomes intuitive enough to take corners smoothly.

Cybertruck pioneer, Badiyan, knows of an old rancher couple on a farm far out in the Lonestar State who also switched to a Tesla, and are apparently thrilled. But after half a day in Austin, it's hard to imagine the silver oddball as the Texans' ubiquitous car - or as a serious replacement to the ubiquitous F-150, Silverado and Ram1500. But, Austin is probably just the wrong place - despite the factory on the outskirts of the city. 

Next time, we’ll go to Houston, where NASA has its headquarters. Maybe the Cybertruck really belongs with the astronauts, rather than with the cowboys.