ALL CyberTruck discussion

[Snerruc]

I have to believe that there is a chasm between "one time" and "less". So many truck owners simply never tow. I great follow-up question would be "Do you have something to tow NOW" (i.e. boat, jet ski, trailer of any kind, etc.). If they don't then the towing opportunities are simply a lot less. I see lots of trucks parked in driveways here in my area...but a MUCH smaller percentage seem to have a trailer, boat, etc.
I agree with the comments about owners "intending" to tow and it being important to them in a purchase....the reality is often very different. It is, in some ways, similar to the EV range discussions. Sure, you MIGHT need back to back days of 300 mile driving in the Winter, and for a FEW this is undoubtedly the norm, but these "edge cases" become the argument.

As a guy who used to tow a 23 ft cabin cruiser with a 78 Pontiac Gran Prix, I have a problem with anyone who thinks it takes a F350 to tow anything Under 6,000 lbs.

 

[AudubonB]

The Cybtrk has great visibility from the driver’s seat, but still not good enough to see almost any of the dings, scrapes and the thousand other natural shocks a truck is heir to.

 

[jkirkwood001]

...Yes, some get used regularly as trucks. Fewer of the total than most people owning trucks might think. Pickups are the best-selling vehicle in the US and I would hazard a guess that most of them on average have an empty bed better than 95% of the time. More so in the urban areas, excepting those scant few which are used daily for hauling tools and materials for work. (Vans are more practical for most daily job site vehicles)

I'd suspect that, considering the production and sales numbers for pickups, these "daily work trucks" are realistically a very tiny percentage of the total number of pickups on the road when measured against the multitudes which have been manufactured and sold over the decades.

The use of the Cybertruck will most likely align with that trend as it will even better fit the role as an Urban Assualt Vehicle carrying groceries, Soccer players, and doing an occasional run to Home Depot to a much higher degree than the few of which will be put to work daily with tools and materials in the bed. Granted, there will be Youtube videos galore of CT doing awesome things, but it will be as foolish to interpret this as being the usual role as it would to do so for any other pickup.

This is just the way US consumers are about pickups. They are mostly being employed as comfy sedans that can sometimes carry a load if the need arises. This will fly in the face (and ego) of the pickup owner who sees themselves as one of those people in a pickup advertisement routinely hauling Space Shuttles around.

Isn't whether pickups are used as 'real trucks' moot? I mean, if most people think they need a 'real' truck', or want to look like they need a 'real truck', and a Cybertruck looks and acts most like a 'real' truck should, that's all that's needed, right? It doesn't matter if they use their Cybertruck off-road or hauling big loads, as long as they believe - and looks like - it can. I can't see how Tesla won't sell every one they make for the next 5 years at least.

My hope is that Icelanders get Cybertruck, like the experienced Tesla salesguy I talked to in Reykjavik this summer who so wished for one. Iceland is the 2nd highest EV country after Norway, and half the country is covered in "F roads" (see bottom) that require this type of mod-ed truck (Cybertruck wouldn't need a 'snorkel'!).

The Cybertruck is perfect for Iceland! After all, where'd they just record that Cybertruck promo video?

Iceland F roads.

 

[mongo]

Best stats I'm aware of are:

75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, once a year or less.

How many live where it snows? Or down unpaved roads?
Only 35% put stuff in the bed? Apparently trucks and Costco locations are mutually exclusive... and they lack equipment which needs fuel cans... (yes, you can put those on something inside the cabin)

 

[Knightshade]

How many live where it snows? Or down unpaved roads?
Only 35% put stuff in the bed? Apparently trucks and Costco locations are mutually exclusive... and they lack equipment which needs fuel cans... (yes, you can put those on something inside the cabin)

I think you read the 35% stat backward from how it's written.

 

[Unclepaul]

While not rock crawling like the headline suggests, this is indeed a great way to test the durability of the CyberTruck on rutted off pavement. With little support and few repair facilities or equipment, doing rock crawling this far away for civilization would be foolish. Believe Tesla will get the data they need to enter full production of the CyberTruck.

 

[TN Mtn Man]

This is what I'm looking forward most, and they described they went through that and I bet was filmed

Rivian had a lot of potential with their quad motor system, but in practice it showed to inferior in certain situations, mostly low speed where you have just two diagonal wheels with traction. To this day I don't understand why it is still a problem, it simply doesn't apply enough torque to the wheels with traction, and I doubt it's a power and torque limitation since they have 200 hp and over 200 ft lb on each wheel

Want to see how Cybertruck does in a similar situation since Tesla traction control is next level

The truth is, a system that uses multiple motors or brakes to redistribute the traction will always be reactive, while a single engine with lockers everywhere will always be proactive, but I've driven plenty in a Suzuki Jimny that only has the brake based traction control and no lockers, and I can't believe the place I climbed with it, and I'd say Suzuki software must be a bit worse than Tesla lol

@10:00 bellow

Other Teslas does pretty well but obviously it isn't off road like the video above

Great videos, and exactly the kinds of things I'd have liked to see on the Cybertruck "off-road" vid. Surprised at how bad the R1S traction control seems to be-that is the type of mild-moderate trail I see people taking rigs on all the time in Idaho. It acted like a conventional 4x4 with "open" differentials and no TC. I'd taken my Grand Cherokee over worse with no drama. The Y is a compact crossover and seems to have a much better system than the R1S, so I'd expect CT to be at least as good. In defense of the Rivian, videos always make hills look a lot less steep than what they feel like when you're on them.

 

[TN Mtn Man]

The road I’ve lived on for 25 years is the Denali Highway, and for some of those years its conditions have been so heinously horrendous that, without exaggeration, it wasn’t far off from being akin to rock crawling. More pothole than road - again, without exaggeration - and deep ones, too. Average speed for many long stretches of its 136 miles right at 5mph.

THIS road, not the groomed test track 100 miles up the way* that Tesla has shown you in videos of “true Arctic conditions”, is where the company should have been testing its metal’s mettle. To the limits I could, I invited, begged and pleaded Tesla to make use of it; the cachet…the literal street creds it would obtain were they able to claim to have proven their rig on it…would have been priceless.

Some of my considerable reservations about the truck do, I admit, stem from the company having declined the invitation. It is not concerns over secrecy. In the test grounds they use, they share the same indoor space as Ford and GM, the separation being only a hung tarpaulin. In that the state of Alaska abandons the DHwy for seven months out of the year - DOT departs from it and we few denizens have it to ourselves, “maintaining” it with our own rigs, including the gajillion-dollar Pisten Bully I had hauled up from Whistler/Blackcomb - we could give the company as much as fifty miles of its length with no tourists, no hunters, no corporate or media spies other than 40,000 caribou and a few moose taking notes.

Now, we don’t have gumbo for them to test, but along with the road’s surface, we do have -50 and -60 temps, and winds straight out of Neptune. Test and refine your vehicle there, and it is proven for anywhere. Anywhere it will fit - which is not Moab.

*you can see our country, the Alaska Range - the continent’s highest mountains - far on the skyline from some of Tesla’s shots.

One thing on my bucket list is taking a bike up the Dalton to Prudhoe Bay. Will be a good adventure...depending on weather of course. ADV bikes thrive on the conditions you describe.

GM used to do their cold weather testing in Kapuskasing, Ontario. Not extreme off-road conditions but plenty of cold-and a lot more accessible to the folks in Warren.

​

 

[Electroman]

Given the recent report of a Rivian customer (Rich Rebuilds) complaining about 30K repair cost to a fix rear end ding, that I think is the biggest concern of all vehicles that have gigacasting.

Rich Rebuilds Gets $37,000 Repair Bill For Seemingly Minor Rivian R1T Damage

YouTuber Rich Rebuilds, whose real name is Rich Benoit, was recently involved in not one but two fender benders with his all-electric Rivian R1T.

insideevs.com

 

[RobStark]

I would not categorize the damage below as a "ding."

 

[mongo]

Given the recent report of a Rivian customer (Rich Rebuilds) complaining about 30K repair cost to a fix rear end ding, that I think is the biggest concern of all vehicles that have gigacasting.

Rich Rebuilds Gets $37,000 Repair Bill For Seemingly Minor Rivian R1T Damage

YouTuber Rich Rebuilds, whose real name is Rich Benoit, was recently involved in not one but two fender benders with his all-electric Rivian R1T.

insideevs.com

A lot of that was disassembly and reassembly to do the repainting and body panel replacement.
No painting needed and body panels seem like they can be replaced fairly easily.

 

[AudubonB]

Don’t wait for it to start filling your bucket - do it now. A terrific adventure - but definitely do it with a minimum of one and preferably several companions.
We have a great story about such, from an Alabaman family staying with us two years ago. Two very big misadventures, of which this is one:
Children, two parents and one paternal grandmother. So Dad and Grandma….

…their father/husband, a number of years ago, had had absolutely enough of it with his job and having to deal with people. So he full-frontal quit, bought a….I forget what bike, whether it was a Honda Superglide or a KTM dirt or what…and drove to AK, and up the Dalton.

Fortunately for him, a trucker saw his wreckage not too long after the road bested him, carefully extracted him and drove him down to the Fairbanks hospital. Multiple wounds, broken limbs and ribs, maybe a punctured lung….but he survived and now is well. BUT NO DESIRE to join that family and return to AK.

Punchline? His accident, while sadly not uncommon, made front page headlines in Alaska for a day and Alabama for a week or more. Why?









That job I told you about he had quit? He was Alabama’s governor.

 

[Electroman]

A lot of that was disassembly and reassembly to do the repainting and body panel replacement.
No painting needed and body panels seem like they can be replaced fairly easily.

So you are saying, CT repair costs will not be obscenely astronomical? how about the Model Ys that will have giga casts?

 

[mongo]

So you are saying, CT repair costs will not be obscenely astronomical? how about the Model Ys that will have giga casts?

Yup, CT will be low labor hours for repair

 

[MP3Mike]

how about the Model Ys that will have giga casts?

Hasn't Tesla already said that repair times, and costs, for a similar collision are actually lower for vehicles with the large castings?

 

[TN Mtn Man]

One thing on my bucket list is taking a bike up the Dalton to Prudhoe Bay. Will be a good adventure...depending on weather of course. ADV bikes thrive on the conditions you describe.

Don’t wait for it to start filling your bucket - do it now. A terrific adventure - but definitely do it with a minimum of one and preferably several companions.
We have a great story about such, from an Alabaman family staying with us two years ago. Two very big misadventures, of which this is one:
Children, two parents and one paternal grandmother. So Dad and Grandma….

…their father/husband, a number of years ago, had had absolutely enough of it with his job and having to deal with people. So he full-frontal quit, bought a….I forget what bike, whether it was a Honda Superglide or a KTM dirt or what…and drove to AK, and up the Dalton.

Fortunately for him, a trucker saw his wreckage not too long after the road bested him, carefully extracted him and drove him down to the Fairbanks hospital. Multiple wounds, broken limbs and ribs, maybe a punctured lung….but he survived and now is well. BUT NO DESIRE to join that family and return to AK.

Punchline? His accident, while sadly not uncommon, made front page headlines in Alaska for a day and Alabama for a week or more. Why?









That job I told you about he had quit? He was the state’s governor. Easy to Google.

Agreed, I have a neighbor that did an Alaska run at a later age in life-not sure he did the Haul Road though. Not sure what bike I'd pick-I have a small KTM 390-it would be fun on those gravel roads-but not much fun to ride there from TN. Might have to pick up an 890 for that. I had a 1290 and really don't desire a big ADV bike again-though a trip like this is what they do well. Just big and heavy when the going gets rough and no fun to pick up!

I shouldn't do a smiley at your post-but that last line makes it. Great to have a state with a governor that's into adventure!

 

[heltok]

Any guess on when it will be available outside of NA and which countries will get it first?

 

[RobStark]

Any guess on when it will be available outside of NA and which countries will get it first?

Ford is taking orders for the F-150 Lightning in Norway. That seems like a good place to start outside NA. I don't know if they have delivered any yet.

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2023/04/20/_yes--norway-_-f-150--lightning--goes-global-as-ford-announces-i.html

 

[kpanda17]

Btw, ever live in the better part of town and when the electrician or carpenter arrives, the hourly cost doubles because of that location? CT autobody and casting repair will be artificially high due to where EVs live, in a new place where industry feels they can take advantage.
Too bad

 

[advocate8]

Best stats I'm aware of are:

75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, once a year or less.

Yes. This will vary by region. In Wyoming, the numbers would surely be a lot higher. In my area, much lower.
And a reasonable theory for exploring this type of data for CT five years from now would be CT owners would do these things at lower rates than average. If for no other reason the more expensive the truck, the less likely it is to see heavy utility / off-road use.