The Tesla Cybertruck has lots of haters, with plenty saying the origami truck is just a fashion statement and not a real truck with a real, useful bed. Noticing that many of these folks then turn around and extoll the virtues of 4.5-foot-bed-having Ford Mavericks and Rivian R1Ts, I couldn’t help but wonder if they were looking for things to dislike about the Cybertruck or if indeed, the vehicle’s bed was totally useless. So I gave the Cybertruck a try; I loaded up an Ikea dresser, a bunch of plants, a ladder, groceries, and more; here’s what I learned.
Let’s all just be honest here: Modern trucks aren’t what they used to be in terms of bed capacity. I don’t mean weight, of course, because we’ve got some beefy machines out there that can really haul. I’m talking about volume. Everyone’s buying crew cabs these days; in fact, many truck-makers don’t even offer long-beds anymore. The eight-foot bed has long since been replaced by the five and a half-footer, and more and more trucks are coming into the fray with even shorter boxes; the Hyundai Santa Cruz has a four-foot bed, the Rivian R1T and Maverick have 4.5-foot beds, the Jeep Gladiator has a five-foot bed, and there are a bunch of trucks with beds that stretch only five-feet and some change.
My point is that Americans have shown that they’re willing to give up bed utility to just be able to comfortably drive a spacious truck everyday. A truck’s main purpose is no longer to carry a bunch of stuff, it’s to be a reliable daily driver that has the capability to — every now and then — tow and haul things. Yes, America’s pickup truck market has definitely had a glow-up. In that context, the Cybertruck is surprisingly useful.
My first test of the Cybertruck’s bed was a trip to Costco, where I parked in the very back, since the vehicle is still rare and tends to cause quite a stir when folks see it. I just wanted to buy my groceries and go home, so I parked at the back and watched as only a couple of folks pulled out their phones and snapped pictures. I showed a few the interior; it was fun:
I tried convincing my girlfriend to buy delicious foods like Totino’s Pizza Rolls, only to be reminded that I’m in my 30s and need to eat food that won’t put me into an early grave. As a result, we loaded our cart with oatmeal, bland non-Honey-Nut Cheerios, seaweed (which I do love), spinach, sardines, wheat bread, sparkling water, organic tortilla chips, and some paper towels.
Things fit just fine, and though the tailgate’s considerable height meant we had to lean in quite far to get the groceries onto the bed floor, this was not an issue, and closing up the tonneau cover protected everything from flying away or getting jacked. I just hit the button on the left rear bedside, and down rolled that cover, making a bit of noise as it raced down the truck’s spine:
Upon returning to my girlfriend’s house, I was surprised to see that the truck fit in the garage reasonably well. It’s big, but I think it looks bigger than it actually is:
Unloading my healthy, tasteless food required once again reaching over the tall, now-horizontal tailgate. It wasn’t a huge deal. What was more challenging was grabbing the short items over the tall, sloping bedsides:
But are the bedsides really that bad? No, actually. They’re not. The Tesla Cybertruck’s air suspension allows the vehicle to lower its ride height when parked; most other trucks (sans the Ram 1500 and Rivian R1T and maybe one or two others) don’t offer that. This drops the Cybertruck down to where the bedsides are at a more reasonable height.
It’s worth noting that many other off-road trucks have tall bedsides. I tried reaching into the back of a Ford F-150 Raptor R the other day, and it wasn’t easy; the top of the bedside was way up at my shoulder. Sure, it had 37s instead of the Cybertruck’s 35-inch tires, but even with a ride height an inch or so lower, reaching something low in the bed wouldn’t exactly have been easy:
The next job for the Cybertruck’s bed involved moving an Ikea dresser that I had just sold. At over 4.5-feet long and over two feet tall, this could be challenging to fit into, say, a small SUV. This was a great application for a pickup truck:
Keen to avoid scratching the bed floor since this is a vehicle The Autopian’s sister-company Galpin is selling, I asked my girlfriend to lay down a blanket. At 5’7″ and standing on a curb, she had a little trouble reaching over those bedsides to get the blankets into the corners, as you can see here:
Autopian reader Jack helped with the lifting, placing the dresser onto the tailgate:
From there, he pushed the dresser from the back as I lifted it from the front over the bedside. As you can see, it’s a little tricky given how tall the bedsides are, but since the dresser was also tall, it was doable. If we’d set the dresser on its back, it’d have been harder for me to reach down, but it’s worth mentioning that there’s an advantage to having a shorter load even if it comes at a cost to reachability: It can be longer. As you can see, the Cybertruck’s cab “leans” backwards into the bed, limiting the length of taller objects. Luckily, our dresser was only 4.5 feet long, and the Cybertruck’s bed is six-feet in length (and just over four-feet in width, if you were curious), so there was enough margin.
In the end, the dresser and its drawers fit just fine, even if there wasn’t a ton of extra room length-wise.
It is worth mentioning that, as I was lifting the front of the dresser over the bedside, I somehow accidentally opened the charging door. This is a silly design, of course:
Anyway, the third and final task I asked of the Cybertruck’s bed involved moving some plants that my girlfriend had bought from Home Depot, along with a ladder that we’re using to clean her upstairs windows:
The ladder, which stands at about seven feet, fit just barely when placed diagonally across the bed. The big Fig leafs stood above where the tonneau cover would sit, so we kept that open on the drive home. Loading and unloading the plants was mostly fine except, when I reached over the bedside to move one of the plants, I cut myself:
This, as you can see, is a very light scratch, but it wasn’t painless, and more than that, it just wasn’t necessary. I give Tesla a pass on a lot of this truck’s silliness because that’s what makes this truck compelling to so many people, but to make a sharp edge on a bedside that people will regularly reach over? Come on.
I Tweeted about this and, well, the replies from the Tesla-lovers were predictable:
Cut myself on the Tesla Cybertruck loading a fig tree. This edge on the bedside, which you reach over to grab things, is really suboptimal. pic.twitter.com/SqDUpo18EE
— David Tracy (@davidntracy) May 11, 2024
This one’s seems like the norm on modern-day Twitter:
Your wife’s boyfriend must love it when you’re out running errands in your Cybercuck
— Joe Dirt.doom (@joe_dirts) May 11, 2024
Here’s some more of that macho BS:
Have you tried being a man and not cry about it on the internet?
— Hugh_Mungus (@HughMungusPepe) May 12, 2024
Another:
Such a pussy.
— NG (@JBeasymoney) May 12, 2024
And here’s one I should have just left alone:
Cute comment. I drive a four-on-the-floor, 4×4, regular cab, long bed 1985 Jeep J10 with a stamped tailgate, bench seat, and a straight six whose carb I tuned myself. Here’s me towing a WW2 Jeep, and here’s me rebuilding its transmission with hand tools. In my kitchen. pic.twitter.com/izdRdZqzTM
— David Tracy (@davidntracy) May 12, 2024
Anyway, what’s the takeaway here?
Well, the Cybertruck’s bed is definitely useful. The bedsides are sharp and tall, yes, but the air suspension helps them not feel that much taller than those of other full-size trucks on 35-inch tires.
Tall objects are reasonably easy to reach even over those tall bedsides, though the downside is that tall objects are limited in length due to the sloping rear of the cab. The tailgate, too, is a bit long, requiring one to really lean over to grab things in the bed. I think it’d be nice to have some kinds of indents in the bedsides to create dividers so things don’t slide around, but the under-bed storage is useful for this, as is the frunk. Here, allow me to show those:
Obviously, the truck’s bed is compromised, but so is the Rivian R1T’s, which is only 4.5-feet long. The R1T’s bed is likely significantly easier to reach from the sides, and really, that’s the biggest downside of the Cybertruck’s bed, as reaching over from the sides is one of the main advantages of loading up a pickup bed over, say, the cargo area of a Tahoe or Suburban SUV. Still, there are other advantages like clean-ability and lack of a roof to constrain how tall your load can be. So, in the end, the Cybertruck has a legitimately usable bed that might cut you every now and then and require you to stand on your tiptoes as you accidentally bump open the charge door reaching over the bedside.
So take that for what it’s worth.
Consider that trunk button, up on the fender. Totally exposed to the elements, sun, rain, snow and hail. How long will the plastic or rubber seals last before water leaks onto those electric switches? That’s innovative, in a stupid way. Any other manufacturer would give them some protection, or avoid the idea completely.
Why were you putting groceries in the bed? I always use the extended cab back seat except for really big stuff. I also have a scaffold plank in a convenient vertical slot to divide the front 18″ of my truck’s 8′ bed to carry small stuff.
Why were you putting groceries in the bed? I don’t know, maybe because this vehicle has a very large area dedicated specifically to, and optimized for, carrying non-human cargo, and it would be a little silly to stick it in a footwell.
The frequency with which bagged groceries end up dumped out all over inside the bed is pretty high and extremely aggravating. So his point is actually valid in the daily use perspective. A dump truck is even more optimized for cargo! I still wouldn’t want to haul the weekly shop home in it. We ended up learning to tie every single bag closed before loading them in the bed.
“A dump truck is even more optimized for cargo! I still wouldn’t want to haul the weekly shop home in it.”
You’d probably spend more on gas than the groceries.
Back in medieval times they would use Cybertruck parts as guillotines. Also, they would just use a couple of rivets to keep the blade from sliding off.
I’d like to start a petition to add a team of paramedics to the Autopian staff. Each staff member gets an assigned paramedic to helicopter over them 24/7 to ensure prompt aid is provided to keep y’all alive while you feed us important car words.
Oh, they’re paper towels. I looked at those groceries and saw a bed full of cereal and toilet paper and thought, “glad David’s keeping regular.”
In retrospect, it might have been TP…
The real question here is why the girlfriend is dressed like Jerry Seinfeld in The Puffy Shirt.
Everyone wants to be a pirate.
Username checks out
I went outside with a tape measure, a 1969 Austin mini pickup has a 4′ 7″ bed, thing still works for ficus plants, furniture and big bits of steam engine. And when not carrying stuff it drives like a badly set up mini cooper.It probably gets nearly as much attention as the Tesla thing too.
What an amazing little machine!
But how well does it mow down pedestrians?
Not sure if it’d fit well and I’m feeling too lazy to check the frunk dimensions… but upon watching you open it in the video, the first that came to mind is that it looks like a perfect shape to haul your golf bag and gear. Safe, separate from anything else you might carry around and super accessible.
Nice review David, very objective, no fluff. Detents in the bed walls for adding boards / dividers like most trucks would be cool but oh well.
The sloping side is strange, you probably cut yourself trying to reach over the side and grab your groceries that flopped all over the place. No box or bag?? Is that a Cali thing?
It’s a Costco thing. If you don’t grab a random left over box walking through the store, you end up with cart haphazardly filled with $300 of groceries.
OK, that explains it. I’ve never been to a Costco so thank you for clearing that up!
Man, you know times are tough when you create the username “hugh-mungus” and belittle other people.
What do incels have against fig trees, anyway?
They know that fig leaves are overkill for them?
Well played, sir, well played.
The Cybertruck is the automotive equivalent of one of those fantasy display daggers they sell at the mall that’s covered in spikes facing in every direction. If you actually tried to use it you’d be more likely to cut yourself.
P.S. LOL at the dude with “Pepe” in his handle and a face like a canned ham trying to lecture about masculinity.
David, there is 1 flaw I can find with your unloading of the Costco items. Why is everything not in another box? Do CA Costco’s not let you take their boxes (read: Trash) to carry your things? If I were to have loaded it, all the small stuff would be in 1 large box, then no reaching over the side needed. Beyond that, excellent commentary. Don’t feed the trolls, let them believe what they want, but your friends know the truth.
They do but I’ve noticed I usually need to ask. Since California sized garages often aren’t big enough to let you open the lift gate I usually forego the box and play Tetris fitting stuff securely in the middle row seats.
I’ve also tended to be the among the only families to use the garage as a proper car hole. Most use the garage for storage and park the cars outside. Even one of my neighbors that owns a Tesla and they run the charging cable out to their driveway.
You mean you’re not one of those people on NextDoor who use their garage as a cabana/yoga studio/storage locker/$4500 a month rental, but complain about the wheels/mirrors/lights being stolen off your Lexus/Mercedes/BMW?
I keep getting invites to NextDoor but I’ve heard horrible things about NextDoor communities so I keep ignore the “this is your last chance” to join e-mails haha.
OK, kids, here is how you really do a Costco run:
That’s my Aldi run in a nutshell. Costco and BJ’s having boxes available is ingrained in me like a Jeep having a 7 slot grill.
They do have boxes. But I don’t have room for any more boxes from Costco. Bags work fine, though we are wearing them out.
This is brilliant!
Can we start a petition to get writers for online news outlets to stop trying to make ‘glow up’ a thing? It’s never going to be a thing. What it is, is distracting at best, mildly obnoxious at worst.
English is already a rich and varied language, with many words available to convey precise meaning, across a wide spectrum of connotations. We don’t need the terminally online continually inventing new sayings to replace words like ‘improvement’.
This is a perfectly cromulent request.
While I don’t care for the term myself, languages evolve and change. That’s normal and the only languages that don’t are all dead.
I stan this take, ftw.
All languages evolve and change. But i would very much appreciate it if this language didn’t evolve in that, really dumb, direction.
Explain what direction that is
“the terminally online continually inventing new sayings to replace words like ‘improvement’.”
Stop trying to make Fetch happen
I don’t necessarily agree, but I understand your frustration.
Say less.
“Glow up” has been a thing for years. Time to get hip with the youths.
I don’t have a beef with this truck per se, but I don’t see how it’s any better than an F-150 Lightning (with aftermarket bed cover).
I got my CT last week, and sold my ’21 F-150 PowerBoost last weekend. I had a tonneau cover on the Ford — a nice aluminum one. I find the CT to be better because it has a greater amount of secured volume, it’s a 6 inch longer bed, and the bed lighting is better. Boxlink on Ford is nice but the L-track on the CT is standard and there’s tons of stuff out there that works with it. It’s all about use case.
Bigger bed, lighter weight, a little shorter, much better turning radius. Higher factory rated payload if that matters.
All this discussion of reaching over the sides of the bed…my friends, may I introduce to you the wonder that is El Camino?
Or Aztek with a bed
This is the incEl Camino, aka the Wank Panzer. Get it straight!
Reaching over the side of the bed must be one of those things tall people do. On my Maverick, I pretty much stand on the tire to reach over the side, and it’s about as low as anything out there. Most of the things I dislike about the Cybertruck are aesthetic, and that’s fine, but I don’t understand why the cab needs to slope into the bed. This is the first I’ve seen that and I think it would really detract from the usefulness. Also, sharp edges happen, but they shouldn’t. There’s really no good justification for it.
Same reason the Ridgeline has the cab sloping into the bed, and the Avalanche. A triangle is a much better shape than a big L for a unibody structure.
I’m not talking about the sides of the box, I’m referring to the back of the cab. On both the Ridgeline and Avalanche the back of the cab is vertical. On the Cybertruck, it extends backward over the bed. This makes no sense to me from a practical perspective. If you think it’s a neat design, fine, but I think it detracts from the usefulness,
Oh, that. That’s just a packaging thing. The rear seat backs are at an angle, and so if you butt them up against a vertical back wall of the cab, you end up with a wedge of empty space. On older pickups, this contained the fuel tank. On newer pickups, this space is empty and wasted.
Tesla absolutely could have done what Ford, Chevy, and Dodge have done on their half tons: made the front of the bed vertical, sacrificing about 6″ at the bottom of the bed but keeping the top the same, and ending up with a 5.5′ bed. This is exactly the same for hauling tall things, but 6″ worse for hauling flat things like lumber. And that’s why the Cybertruck can haul plywood without hanging over the tailgate where most competitors can’t.
In general, I much prefer the Tesla 6′(5.5′ at the top) to the Big Three 5.5’+empty triangle behind the seats. It’s less useful than a proper 6′ bed, but more useful than a 5.5′ bed, and more efficiently utilizes space.
The other option being: minimize the amount of space wasted between the angled seats and the vertical cab wall by making the seat backs vertical and totally uncomfortable. This is pretty much how new Rangers are, and its dreadful.
Tesla fan -> You have to expect getting sliced up as part of cutting edge tech.
Most of us, No we do not.
It wouldn’t be “cutting edge” without edges that cut.
I can imagine Musk saying, “I want this truck to be literally cutting edge,” then walking off. The designers shrug their shoulders, and voila.
so David Roth on the Defector spent 1,100 words in expressing just how he felt upon viewing the Cybertruck for the first time. 1,100 words just to say ‘it fucking sucks’.
Of course, he did it HIS way, and you, sir, are managing to say pretty much the same thing, except you’re doing it YOUR way.
And as for Hugh Mungus Pepe, I live in Mendota, IL. It’s a small town and I’m a big guy. Come find me, and I’ll beat you like a rented mule.
You know what they say, the fastest mule is a rental mule.
I don’t think I’ve ever faulted the truck being able to handle some truck things, the bed and storage are useful for sure, but not really Cybertruck specific, but man it still looks so stupid.
It really, truly is one of the stupidest looking things on the road today.
Yeah, every time I even see a pic of it, I can’t even comprehend how terrible it looks…it’s just so DUMB…and it gets worse every time
As someone who is 35 and has pizza rolls for breakfast up to 4 times a week (down from 7 times a week), I stand in solidarity.
I seriously wonder how long this relationship will last. I mean, what does she do for him that is fun? No, I don’t need details, but it had better be worth not having pizza rolls.
She appears to cover her face with a large black button.
Kudos to her for humbly maintaining her anonymity.
Yeah, I’m 39 and dropped 20lbs so far this year without cutting out any junk food, I just started eating less of everything and exercising more
RIP
David, you can get the pizza rolls. Youre an adult man! You just buy them, like the rest of us not-single adults!
And then hide them, eat them when the S.O. isnt home, and air out the house so they dont smell it. Because she steals my pizza rolls.
I come for the car coverage, but I stay for the relationship advice. In Costco sizes, that’s enough to have them for dinner, say you ate all of them, then hide the remainder in cabinets, garages, toilet tanks, and the like.
Everything about this is totally healthy, but no I’m not married, why do you ask?
Maybe I’m spoiled from my years of living in Seattle but when it comes to self-inflicted vehicular lacerations I prefer the locally-sourced, individually bespoke, artisanal rust-through of my International pickup to the cold, sterile, mass-produced knife edges of this thing. Some experiences shouldn’t be rushed.
Tetanus is an acquired taste.
if you can’t culture your own at home, store bought is fine.
I don’t think tetanus is ever congenital, and you really will sink your teeth in, so you’re technically correct, the best kind of correct.
It’s like being stabbed by Alanis Morissette with a dirty Space Needle as she walks out of Pike Place Market, and no one can take that away from you.
This may be the most level-headed, rational review of any particular portion of the Cybertruck. Honestly it’s impressive to me.
It’s nice to hear that the bed is in fact, pretty usable and useful at least.
Also thank the heavens for this girlfriend of DT.
It’s always nice when they worry about putting you into an early grave. It shows they care.
Conversely, as a twice divorced person, some women may be a succubus and putting you in an early grave would deprive them of a lifetime slowly draining your life force and will to live.
I’m gonna go ahead and assume we’re observing mostly column a here, and hopefully very little of column b.
If I was storing jugs of Ragu in my linen closet for future shower feasts, I would hope my significant other would steer me towards a tub of baby spinach every once in a while.
Ashes to ashes, jugs to tubs.
That, uh, doesn’t read the way I meant.
Someone is kinda skinny for either of those to apply.
Eh, if you get divorced twice, maybe the problem is you :p
I can’t imagine owning a pickup without an 8 foot bed (unless its a compact). However, I do understand that many people use their pickups as their primary vehicle, and my 95 K2500 single cab 454 probably wouldn’t fit their purposes very well. I miss regular extended cabs, I think the ultimate combo is an 8 foot bed with an extended cab. Still have back seats, but the truck isn’t 500 feet long.
You would be shocked. I use my Silverado regularly and have never actually found myself in a situation where I wish I had a long bed rather than a short bed.
I typically only use my truck when I need maximum truck. Hauling firewood, tree limbs, dirt, etc. Smaller stuff can be handled by one of my zooks.
You must be hauling very different things than me. It is SO nice to be able to haul 4x 8′ kayaks with the tailgate up, 100% inside the bed. Or two three wheelers at the same time, with the tailgate up. Or an engine, about half of the pickup the engine came out of, an engine crane, and a large toolbox, again with the tailgate up.
Long beds are so nice.
Mostly woodworking, renovation, and landscaping materials for me. I have hauled kayaks once, but didn’t really mind having the tailgate down.
I have a single cab long bed (8ft) and though it’s a champ for moving day, which always, always involves me, the other 99.5% of the time I wish I had a sensible bed. I buy some lumber/plywood/etc, but I’d rather just strap it down with the tailgate down than deal with a micro-tractor trailer.
lol did you just compare a single cab long bed to an actual semi truck? Of course, when everybody else here says “short bed”, they mean a crew cab short bed significantly larger than your pickup.
I did, and I know. I was just being hyperbolic to drive home that it’s unwieldy. I don’t actually believe it’s as cumbersome as a semi with 53 feet of trailer hooked to the back.
I have a Maverick with a 4.5 ft bed, and yeah, it’s a bit short sometimes. I just remind myself that my wife lives with this issue without complaining.
Oh, your wife is short?
I see what you did there.