Although a handful of customers actually have their hands on the Tesla Cybertruck after it was finally released late last year, anticipation mounts for how well these things perform in the real world. Slowly but surely, those who have managed to get their hands on a Cybertruck have been trickling out info on just how well these trucks perform in the real world, and it’s not good.
Originally spotted by Business Insider, YouTuber Dennis Wang aka DennisCW went to the video platform to document his experiences with the truck. Wang and his friend took the Cybertruck on a 27-hour, 1,340-mile road trip from Austin, Texas to Joshua Tree National Park in California. The most glaring problem Wang encountered on his trip was with the truck’s range. Wang’s truck is a Foundation Edition Cybertruck, which Tesla says is supposed to get 320 miles of range. But this is Tesla we’re talking about.
The Cybertruck Foundation Series has an estimated range of 320 miles on its all-wheel drive option. But, Wang said, at times, it felt as if that range was cut in half. The pair stopped 12 times during the 1,340-mile trip, which rounds out to just more than 110 miles between charges, and Wang said they stopped every one to two hours to recharge. While the pair took turns driving straight through the night, he said, the stops turned what could have been a 20-hour road trip into a 27-hour one.
Speaking to Insider, Wang blamed Texas’ cold weather and his speeding for the Cybertruck’s poor range performance; California’s warmer climate and closing the beds tonneau cover helped things, he says. Wang also encountered issues with the truck’s center display, which controls everything. In a video that specifically highlights the issues after the trip, it’s explained that 13 hours into the trip, the infotainment screen went completely blank for no reason. A reset made it come back on, but it did the same thing a second time.
Wang and his friend figured out that there was an issue with the screen not being backlit after looking closely at it with their phone flashlights, but it still didn’t come on. Even a call to Tesla service didn’t help; seemingly for no reason, the screen came on on its own the following morning.
Charging was another issue that sort of highlights that Cybertruck designers may not have been thinking clearly when they designed this thing, as Wang explained to Insider.
One unexpected difficulty: charging the car. Wang said that when he stopped to use Tesla’s Superchargers, many didn’t appear to be designed with the Cybertruck’s larger size in mind.
“You had to back up as far as possible to the parking stop for the cable to reach, and sometimes the cable was barely long enough to plug into the car,” he said.
He provided a picture to Insider of a Tesla Supercharger cable nearly stretched to the limit as proof of the difficulty they had. Even in the below screenshot (that’s rather dark) you can see how the charging cable barely reaches the charging port on the truck; Wang mentioned how you have to come damn near close to hitting the charging station itself for it to reach. But as with most Tesla fans, none of the negatives kept Wang from singing the praises of the Cybertruck. “It’s a fantastic truck. The interior and build quality are definitely one of Tesla’s best. It makes me really excited for what future Teslas will look like.”