Earlier tonight – well, last night because you’re reading this in the morning – I took my neighbor to pick up his Tesla Model Y that I wrote about earlier, the one where the emergency door release shattered a window. While I was there, I noticed a few Cybertrucks in the lot, which happens to be the first production Cybertrucks I’ve seen in the wild. I’ve seen the prototype one in person, but seeing the actual, production models was interesting. For a size comparison, I parked my Nissan Pao next to one and took some pictures. The thing is big. And kind of clunky. And while I get the appeal, I think, I also get the eye-rolling. But, whatever, this is still a vehicle that everyone likes to talk about so who am I to ruin anyone’s fun?
I think the most remarkable part of the Cybertruck is that windshield wiper. It’s massive. It’s probably 75% of my height, and probably 125% of my net worth. If I installed it on my Pao, it would probably flip the car over if I turned it on.
Is it bigger than most conventional trucks? Modern trucks are generally pretty huge, after all. But most lack such large expanses of unadorned, unbroken, flat metal, and I think that gives an illusion of mass that is unique to the Cybertruck.
The size differences between Pao and Cybertruck are pretty evident from this rear view. The Cybertruck feels long enough that, were I to start at the tailgate in my Pao and attempt to drive to the front, I’d probably have to shift to second gear somewhere around the A-pillar.
And yet, I’d like to point out, the Pao, with its drop-down tailgate like the Cybertruck, is also capable of truck-like acts, even beyond, say, eight bags of mulch. Look:
I’m glad the Cybertruck exists; I think cars that are radically different from the norm are a good thing, regardless of whether I like them or not. And, like it or not, the Cybertruck does represent a pretty radical departure from the norm, so I salute it.
A bit of forced perspective makes my Pao look a lot less small, but I assure you, compared to the Cybertruck, it is. I mean, compared to the average old Buick it is small, as it is to most things on the road, and that includes some horses.
It’s such a polarizing vehicle, the Cybertruck. That’s part of what makes it so interesting. My Pao is sort of a polarizing machine, too, in the sense that there’s people who love it and people who wouldn’t be caught dead in it. But the general reaction when people see it is one of friendliness, where it’s seen as an amusing novelty or even almost how people might react to an otter trotting by.
The Cybertruck isn’t like that; it has its incredibly devoted fans, as well as knee-jerk foes, but it’s sort of inherently confrontational. That’s not really an image I want to just project out into the world at random, firehosing confrontational energy out william-nilliam, but, as is our policy here, I refuse to yuck anyone’s yum.
So, Cybertruck fans, enjoy. Enjoy your huge, sharp-edged, faintly absurd truck. Lots of great cars are absurd, after all.
Well, now we need to see pics of the Pao parked next to a horse (or horses).
Three days ago the first Cybertruck in my neighborhood arrived, and it’s been parked in front of my house — it belongs to my neighbor across the street, who is currently trimming their bushes back so that they can back it down their narrow driveway to charge it up.
My first impression, quality-wise and not getting into design other than from a materials standpoint, is that the dead flat steel panels are a bad idea. Two things immediately made themselves evident. First, that the joint at the base of the A-pillar on the driver’s side is poorly aligned, while on the passenger side it’s fine. Second, the flat reflective panels betray the fact that at least one of them has ripples across the surface. They might have been better off with slightly convex surfaces such as are found on the y-shaped surface feature on the flank of many current Hyundais. The concavity might have straightened some ripples and/or made them less apparent.
I see one car that’s ideal for self-confident and practical people who appreciate thoughtful design and whimsy.
The other is best used for hauling damaged and outsized egos to a Pitbull concert.
I have seen the Cybertruck in person more times than I have seen a Pao in person (4 vs. 0)
Keep in mind when reading my comment on the Cybertruck below- I have not been inside one, I have not driven one, and I have only seen them moving on the road.
The Cybertruck looks like a manatee driving down the road. It looks floaty and bloated. It appears to ride like a 1990 Buick LeSabre. Like a center linebacker running the 1600m- out of breath and wobbly.
Now, I understand that it is actually fast. And according to reviews, handles well. And I don’t hate it or have animosity towards it or Tesla. But that doesn’t change what it looks like to me, and I simply can’t get over it yet.
Too bad we can’t post pics in the comments, my buddy and I went to the Tesla dealership – they had a lot full of their trucks and we parked his Mini Cooper pickup right in the middle of them – epic shot!
Oh, and the comments about the sharp edges – all true!
“william-nilliam” killed me
Sure the design is radical and there are strong opinions (some more valid than others…) on it, but ultimately? This this is a bloated mess. Polarizing thoughts aside on the man behind it, this is a vehicle that continues the trend exponentially upward of vehicles being unsafe to everyone. Not just in the ‘slash your wrists open by touching it’ but in the very real danger it presents to everyone on the road including its occupants.
Battery fire? Doors lock, glass is bulletproof, you and everyone you have inside are dead. Touches water and submerges? Yep, we know what happens. Hit a truck? No crumple zones, you’d better hope the impact doesn’t liquefy your insides. You hit someone else? You’re four tons of steel and battery, they’re toast.
This vehicle belongs nowhere near any US road.
One of the eternal discussions on The Autopian and elsewhere, is just what constitutes a truck. My opinion on that subject is fairly flexible and inclusive and I do clearly include the Cybertruck as a truck. But, what kind of truck is the more important question
I don’t think many Cybertruck’s will be sold to customers who will use these as work/fleet vehicles They are cost prohibitive. So, as with most trucks on the road, they fall into the realm of people transporter, weekend gear hauler, occasional garden center/home improvement store errand runner, and lastly, as a curiosity. Fine: but how does it stack up against the competition in the roles of daily car/weekend truck?
I’m going to compare it to the Ford Maverick. What you say? The F 150 is a more apt comparison given its size, you might think, but is it really?Remember, the Cybertruck is not going to fulfill the classic work truck role, at which the F 150 excels. It will be a weekender at best and mostly just a big car. The littlest Ford is a great example of a weekend truck and especially an urban-based one.
The Cybertruck, as a car, seats five in relative comfort. So does the Maverick. No real advantage. Outside visibility, the Maverick is superior to the sides and rear, even if the Cybertruck is running with its bed cover open. Fit and finish: surprisingly, the Maverick, and especially its upscale models, equals the somewhat spartan Cybertruck, though the latter does have many amenities that the Ford lacks as would befit a price tag that’s $60 -70,000 higher when comparing AWD models.
The Maverick’ s shorter length and wheelbase and narrower width are far more urban driving and parking friendly. Advantage Ford. The Cybertruck’s four wheel steering helps with its size somewhat, but that’s mainly to overcome its own dimensional handicaps. No advantage. Handling-wise, the Maverick is nimbler, though, the Cybertruck is pretty maneuverable, especially for its size.
The Cybertruck has a 6-foot bed, the Maverick 4.5-foot. Advantage Tesla, but considering the typical loads weekend trucks usually haul, it’s an occasional advantage at best. Also, the Maverick can load 1500 lbs in the bed, the Cybertruck only a shade over 1300 lbs. The Cybertruck has an overall load capacity of 2500 lbs, but only half can go in the bed. Practical advantage Ford. The bed height in the Cybertruck is more than 8 inches higher than the Maverick. Load in advantage, Maverick.
The Cybertruck has a maximum tow rating of 11,000 lbs. The Maverick in AWD form can haul 4500 lbs. Advantage Tesla, but again with caveats. The Cybertruck can only tow its maximum load about 100 miles. Also, the typical weekender truck trailer load is under 3000 lbs. All of this mitigates against the Cybertruck advantage, but doesn’t eliminate it, especially in short distance hauling situations.
The Cybertruck is by far the more powerful truck. This translates to much faster acceleration and greater off-road capability, though, again, the Tesla’s size works against it. In terms of real world practicality, the Cybertruck’s acceleration advantage is basically meaningless. The Maverick is more than capable of matching it in normal daily driving conditions. The Cybertruck’s economy rating is roughly 60 percent better than the thriftiest Ford (hybrid) and twice the AWD Maverick’s rating. Advantage Cybertruck. However, the AWD Maverick will travel over 400 miles on a tank of fuel, the AWD Cybertruck will barely achieve 300 miles on a full charge.
The Cybertruck does claim to be bullet resistant to subsonic rounds, though this has been refuted in a couple of tests and does not include the windows or windshield, the two most likely places to be targeted in a vehicle. Somewhat dubious advantage. Also, most ammunition sold in the US is not subsonic, though it is becoming more popular. The Maverick is not bulletproof, speaking non-metaphorically.
The Maverick offers many color options; the Cybertruck, literally none.
The. Cybertruck, like all EVs, currently, is going to be subject to massive depreciation, especially as it gets deeper into its age cycle (and probably due to Musk price manipulations, also). The Maverick, not so much, though dealer mark-ups undercut some of its advantage here.
As a car, both are more than adequate to the task, though the Maverick is probably easier to navigate. As a weekend truck, the Maverick is superior in average real world application. The Cybertruck is more capable off-road, but again, given the likely real world off-road usage of either truck, the Maverick holds its own. All of this leads me to choose the Maverick as the better car/weekend truck.
As a curiosity/status symbol though, it’s hard to beat the Cybertruck. In the final analysis, is this worth price differential? I’ll leave that up to others. Just remember, you can get three AWD drive Mavericks for the price of one AWD Cybertruck.
Thoughtful analysis which supports my long held belief that the Cybertruck could have been much better if they skipped all the notions that it was a truck and just went for an El Camino, car-with-a-bed style vibe. Think of the 10s of people who would buy a 4 door street truck!
Yeah, and there’s the fact that people have taken to referring to the CT as the Incel Camino…
However, some people have posited that it’s more accurate to call it the Incel Dorado because it’s so much more of a luxury car than a truck.
Funny enough, one of the few Cybertrucks in my area has been wrapped by a local business. I can’t vouch for said truck doing any actual work, but if it is only a rolling billboard, I have to believe there are cheaper ways of advertising.
And having seen a few in the real world, pictures don’t tell the whole story. It really does look like a refrigerator on off-road tires, with design cues taken from Starfox 64.
True, but wrapping your truck to advertise your business becomes a tax write-off.
> the Maverick can load 1500 lbs in the bed, the Cybertruck only a shade over 1300 lbs
Seriously? That’s hilariously embarrassing.
Wait, this isn’t the shitbox showdown? Well, I vote Pao anyway.
Jason, Your soft spoken genius shines through in finding the perfect tone as usual. The pictures thousand words illustrate the Pao just wants to be your pal, the CT literally projects sharp edges.
Yup. Full credit for generosity of spirit.
It’s some sort of optical illusion but in photos, even ones I’ve taken myself, the CT appears to be wider and lower, but when I see one in traffic it looks very narrow and upright. I can’t explain it.
I’ve noticed that too. I think it looks bigger in pictures than in real life, especially compared to your average F150. I can’t explain it either.
My experience is the opposite. It looked large in pictures, and then I saw a few and they looked like 11:10 scale versions of the photos. They’re SO absurdly large and take up a lot of room in parking lot, more like a F250. At least that’s my visual impression. I haven’t measured them. They’re just so big and blocky.
I’m sure someone on the internet has posted a comparison of the dimensions of these things. F150, CT, Chevy, Dodge, etc. Been too busy this week to look.
On my scorecard it’s Pao 1 CT 0. I’m sure there are CT in the nearby big city but I’ve yet to see one. Loads of other tesla product.
Back in May, Cars & Coffee in Morrisville, NC had three Cybertrucks in attendance. And only one was furnished by the local Tesla dealer! In the past week or so, I’ve seen CT’s in the wild twice, so they’re on the way to just blending into the R.A.T. (Regular-Ass Traffic) like their Model 3 and Model Y brethren.
On the topic of rarely-seen automotive pairings: A few years ago I took what I rather confidently believe to be history’s only photograph containing a VW Polo Harlekin and a Honda Today Pochette.
You must have not seen the Cybertruck rocking the poorly executed 1/4 pink, 1/4 green, 1/2 bare stainless color scheme driving around Raleigh. Hard to blend into traffic when your ugly truck has an ugly wrap job so bad that bubbles and runs that can be seen in passing at highway speed.
I have not had the pleasure of seeing that one. I’ll keep my eye out, though. Sounds like someone is shooting for the Ugliest Cybertruck award, which is a pretty high (or low) bar.
I’ve seen two on the road – one in Wake Forest and one in Raleigh. Both (or was it the same one?) were plain stainless steel. I was surprised at how much smaller it seemed to be in person.
Finally saw my first Cybertruck in the wild. It was parked in front of a house. It looked more like a metal door stop than I expected it to.
Our local Tesla dealership park one on their lawn. This dealership happens to be adjacent to a grassy area along an off-ramp.
It looked like some sort of weird art installation that the city had installed that has everyone saying: My tax dollars paid for this?
Oh man, the first thing I thought as I looked at that last image was “wow, the wiper on the CT is up”. I was wrong and it wouldn’t start in the middle of the windshield like that.
But now I really want to see the wiper lifted.
Last weekend I saw a Cybertruck for the first time in the wild (so to speak, as it was actually parallel-parked on the side of the street down which I was riding my e-bike home),.and it confirmed the impression I had from pictures. It’s rolling ductwork, with all the visible quality control that field-constructed ductwork generally exhibits.
About putting the Tesla wiper on your Pao…do you know what horseshoe crabs can do with their weird, pointy tails? They can right themselves if they get flipped over!
So, if you set it up right, maybe the Tesla wiper could be an emergency tool to get the Pao back on its wheels, should the next deer you meet decide to escalate.
I had the opposite thought — the Pao with that massive wiper would be flinging itself helplessly to and fro, like a helpless little beetle that got stuck on its back and can’t right itself.
Jason, can you try this in real life please? An experiment for science? For the masses?
So, if you set it up right, maybe the Tesla wiper could be an emergency tool to get the Pao back on its wheels, should the next deer you meet decide to escalate.
Use the wiper to smack that $%& deer right back into the woods where it belongs.
So glad both you and the Pao are out and about again 😀
Here’s my own little blue Pike car next to some truck some people like 😉
https://www.instagram.com/p/C4xXcl2IFKV/
nice metaphor on life choices, in the form of car side-by comparisons. Did Kant park his car purposefully to make a point how to live your life? No, he did not! Jason 1, Kant 0.
Nah I see cybertruck’s and Pao’s everywhere /s honestly though I do not think I have ever seen a Pao in person and have only seen one cybertruck on the road. I have actually have seen more Hummer semi… I mean EV’s on the road. But I agree with sentiment if you like the goofy looks of the cybertruck enjoy. As I see it as no different then enjoying a Kei car, shag van, Subaru Brat, smart car, amphicar (which I actually saw one driving on the road not to long ago) or anything else others may see as impractical or weird weird looking.