After over 4 years of waiting, they are finally Deliveries of the Cybertruck, Tesla’s electric pickup, have begun. They started in the United States, Canada and Mexico, because elsewhere it will be difficult for the car to actually be officially on sale.
This is one of the first things to know when it comes to Musk’s company’s incredible new car on this side of the Atlantic, even if it’s something not many people talk about. We explain it in the lines below, together with other little-known curiosities about Cybertruck.
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Why does the Cybertruck look the way it does?
I am two characteristics so the Tesla pickup immediately catches the eye: it is made of stainless steel (and you can probably also have it in black) and has the angular shape of a triangle. The first is one of the reasons why marketing will be difficult in Europe, the second is somehow the fault of a kid called Saxon. He is 17 years old and he is one of Elon Musk’s (many) children.
According to what was said in the discussion biography of the volcanic entrepreneur, signed by Walter Isaacsonone day Saxon would chiesto al padre “why doesn’t the future look like the future?”, i.e. “Why doesn’t the future look like the future?”. Musk would then turn the question back to Tesla planners and designers, but in the form of a statement: “I want the future to look like the future.”
To please him, as recently confirmed also by Franz von Holzhausen, responsible for the look of the Cybertruck, the team looked to the past. That is, searching among the iconic cars of recent years, especially from the 70s/80s and especially Italian ones: “We started looking around – explained von Holzhausen to Top Gear – And we thought about the Lamborghini Countach”. Which, together with the mythical Alfa Romeo 33 Bertone Carabo (they are both designed by Marcello Gandini), is perhaps the main source of inspiration for the Cybertruck’s design. Besides Saxon’s words, of course.
Why is the Cybertruck smaller than advertised?
Another thing that not everyone knows, perhaps because it doesn’t actually seem to be the case, is that the Cybertruck is smaller than it was supposed to be: compared to the prototype, as explained, it has narrowed more or less by 5% in all directions. Mind you, it’s not that it’s compact: it is anyway almost 5.70 meters long, 1.80 meters high and 2.40 meters wide even measuring the rear-view mirrors. And yet, it is smaller than the Ford F-150, which in the Lightning version reaches 2 meters in height and exceeds 5 meters and 90 in length.
The containment work was perhaps done for aesthetic reasons, in an attempt to have a more proportionate appearance, but more probably for simplify the (already not simple) production and assembly work of steel sheets and also to contain the weight. Because, as it is, the Cybertruck weighs over 3 tons. That’s practically double the size of a Golf, which brings us to the next point.
Why (maybe) will we never see it in Europe?
Mass is perhaps the main obstacle to marketing of the Cybertruck in Italy and in general in Europe, where to drive a vehicle exceeding 3.5 tonnes the normal B license is not enough but you need the C, the one usually reserved for drivers of commercial vehicles. Starting at 3-3.1 tons, Tesla’s new pickup is dangerously close to this critical threshold. Among other things, the value could grow further, if the company really wanted to bring the Cybertruck to these parts and adapt it to the community regulations regarding the protection of occupants and pedestrians (è the topic that is being talked about in Germany these days).
From the first point of view (without going into excessive details), it must be said that the Stainless steel construction it is very different from that of other cars: it is quite resistant (and even bulletproof) but it deforms little or not at all in the event of an impact, with the risk that the impact force is largely transferred to the people inside the passenger compartment .
The hardness of the steel and the lack of crumple zones could also be a problem for other road users (other cars, but especially passers-by and cyclists), along with the fact that the Cybertruck’s angular, wedge-shaped nose is evidently not meant to be kind to anyone unfortunate enough to have it come at them.
So far, Tesla cars have always done well or very well in EuroNCAP teststhe European body that deals with crash tests: it remains to be seen whether the company will want to invest more money to adapt the Cybertruck to the rules of a market in which pickups still remain a niche.
Someday! It looks like they only gave it to friendlies for now, so I’ll probably have to wait to borrow one from a customer (which, IMO, is better for objectivity anyway). I’m looking forward to it, too! https://t.co/3T1PjHbN3J
— Doug DeMuro (@DougDeMuro) December 3, 2023
Why is it the car that YouTubers won in the newspapers with?
A curious thing that happened immediately after the delivery ceremony of the first Cybertrucks of last November 30, is that it seemed that a smartphone and not a car had been presented. Because (perhaps for the first time) to see her in action, understand how she rides, what it’s like to drive her and what she’s like inside her, the only way was to turn to a YouTuber instead of a newspaper.
With the exception of Top Gear, the traditional press has been practically cut out from the possibility of driving the Cybertruck (this is nothing new that Musk doesn’t like newspapers) and it was the various Marques Brownlee of who told it MKBHDZack Nelson by JerryRig and Matt Watson CarWow. And also Hagerty’s Jason Cammisa, who is a bit of a journalist but definitely not a journalist as we are used to understanding him.
Exception within the exception, the absence of Doug DeMuroperhaps the most famous, authoritative and appreciated among car YouTubers, who ironically explained on Twitter that “it seems that at the moment they only gave it to friends!”.
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3 incredible technologies of the new Cybertruck
Friends or not, what is certain is that all those who have tried the new Tesla pickup, on the road or even on the track, they said they were enthusiastic about it, despite initial skepticism. Everyone, with varying levels of satisfaction, was surprised by the performance, the reactivity and the driveability. Everyone was impressed by the technology hidden under the steel sheets, as well as by the new operating system (again, as if the Cybertruck were a giant smartphone on wheels) or by the single 1.20 meter long windshield wiper.
Among the most interesting news, the fact that the steering is completely by-wire, that is, there is no physical connection between the steering wheel and the wheels (so much so that with the car off you can rotate it without the tires rotating). Based on various parameters, the Cybertruck decides the correct steering angle itself and takes less than a full turn to go from fully right to fully left: this, combined with the movement of the rear wheels in phase or out of phase, contributes significantly at the feeling of agility which was mentioned before. Definitely unexpected for a car of this size.
Another technologically significant aspect of Tesla’s electric pickup concerns the batteries, with are different from those used on all other models of the company (also partly made in collaboration with Panasonic): they are 1366, they are larger than the previous ones but they are more efficient and above all they are developed internally by Tesla. Which, a bit like Apple, is now able to control practically all aspects of its products, from hardware to software.
Finally, a curiosity: the Cybertruck does not have an interior rearview mirror (it has it, but you can see nothing or very little behind it) and the designers replaced it with the image transmitted by a camera on the central screen. To see what’s behind you need to look down instead of up, as cars have accustomed us to do more or less since they existed. The external rear-view mirrors, however, are there and they are also nice and large. And also they can be removed completelywhich is another thing that European legislators are unlikely to like.
@capoema