Tesla Cybertruck is in a category of its own for better or worse

DETROIT – Spaceship. Dream car. UFO. Dumpster. Cool. Stupid. Phenomenal. Abomination.

Those were all words used to describe the Tesla Cybertruck during a 24-hour rental of the vehicle in metropolitan Detroit. They were expressed by strangers, friends, family, and auto industry experts and employees.

A word not used much? “Truck.”

That’s because the Tesla Cybertruck is far more “cyber” than “truck.” It indeed has some truck capabilities, such as a pickup bed and other utilitarian features, but it is not a truck in any traditional sense of the word.

It is a unique product that only comes along every so often. Similar to the first SUV, minivan or “roadster pickups” such as the Ford Ranchero and Chevrolet El Camino, it has created a new segment in the automotive industry that it solely holds.

That’s good and bad for both Tesla and its competitors, specifically the truck-reliant automakers from Detroit that have spent decades refining their trucks to meet the needs of their customers. That includes things such as bed access and door handle sizes to seating height and interior components.

The Cybertruck is not a direct competitor for electric trucks from traditional automakers. The Cybertruck is a “truck” for Tesla fans/owners and an experiment for the company in many ways regarding its technologies, including a new electrical architecture and steering system.

The top vehicles that are cross-shopped for the Cybertruck are Tesla’s other four models, followed by the Ford F-150 Lightning in a distant fifth at 7.4% of potential buyers, according to Edmunds.com.

I drove a roughly $100,000 all-wheel-drive version of the Cybertruck in regular driving conditions and traffic in Detroit and its surrounding suburbs, including a short torrential downpour in which the vehicle’s comically large wiper blade performed fine.

I did not test the vehicle’s towing or hauling capabilities, which have come into question recently following reports of problems involving the durability of the vehicle’s aluminum frame. Most notably, in an over-the-top viral video from YouTube channel WhistlinDiesel.

I wanted to have better first-hand knowledge of the vehicle and compare it with electric trucks from other automakers, but that was harder than initially expected. I also purposely did not watch or read any reviews ahead of time about the vehicle before driving it.

The Cybertruck is unlike any other vehicle I’ve ever driven. That includes every all-electric truck on sale today from General Motors, Ford Motor and Rivian Automotive.

The only vehicle to come close to a similar driving experience is GM’s Hummer EV. Both are large, gaudy and outlandish vehicles that are more infamous than they are practical. But the Hummer EV still feels like a truck in its driving dynamics, seating and overall functionality. The Cybertruck does not.

The Cybertruck features tight steering, including a yoke and “steer-by-wire” system; a stiff chassis similar to a sports car; and, while arbitrary, a design that is far more form than function, which is historically one of the top reasons to purchase a pickup truck.

The seating also feels far more like a car than a truck. Even when the vehicle is at its “high” setting, which it can only be in under 25 mph, it’s still several inches lower than most electric trucks.

That’s not to say it isn’t “tough.” As seen on YouTube, the company and owners have shot bullets at it, thrown steel balls at its windows and done other less-than-industry-standard tests. Having said that, the vehicle I drove had just more than 2,000 miles on it and I found two pieces of trim peeling off along the rolling bed cover’s sealant/guide rails.

Potential problems with the durability of the frame are concerning. It is the base of the vehicle that everything is built on. For a vehicle’s frame to break, even in severe testing conditions, is a serious problem.

Regarding its polarizing design, it’s on another level of its own. It makes GMC’s Hummer seem normal. Heads turned, jaws dropped and there were even a few people yelling or screaming, including one fellow driver aggressively giving me a thumbs down as I passed (some Cybertruck drivers have reported more explicit gestures). The reactions came from toddlers and school children to construction workers and police officers.

Inside the doorstop-shaped, stainless-steel alloy exoskeleton of the Cybertruck is where things get more interesting.

The interior of the vehicle, like its other Tesla siblings, is described by many as “minimalistic.” I’d call it sparse and, in some material choices, cheap for a $100,000 vehicle. Given its size, the interior of the vehicle also feels more like a car than a “truck.”

There’s about 3½ feet of unusable space from the driver to the bottom of the vehicle’s windshield, while the back seat is fine for a car but a little lacking for space compared with today’s full-size pickup trucks.

The centerpiece of the vehicle’s interior is a large 18.5-inch, center-mounted touchscreen and minimal controls on the steering wheel, or yoke.

What the Tesla Cybertruck lacks in “truck-ness” and interior qualities, it arguably makes up for in technology, as well as the human-machine interface, or HMI, of the vehicle with the driver.

That includes the gear shifter being a long rectangle in the top left of the screen for drive, park and reverse. It functioned well and I did not miss having to use a traditional shifter, although there are such buttons hidden in the vehicle’s roof, above the screen.

The processing speed of the infotainment system is impressive, especially when compared with other non-Tesla EVs from traditional automakers. It’s also very manageable, despite the amount of information displayed on the screen.

I’d still prefer a screen in front of the driver or a heads-up display for speed and other rudimentary information projected on the vehicle’s windshield but it didn’t bother or distract me as much as I thought it would.

The vehicle’s mirrors also were largely unusable, and likely only there to meet federal safety standard requirements. The Cybertruck’s camera system, which functions in lieu of useful mirrors, took a little getting used to but worked just fine (several automakers have usable mirrors along with such camera systems that show the rear and sides of the vehicle).

I was able to use the vehicle’s adaptive cruise control system, which Tesla infamously calls Autopilot, but not more advanced systems such as “FSD,” which Cybertruck customers can order but isn’t yet available.

The system’s ability to spot and display other vehicles, streetlights, people and even traffic cones, stop signs and garbage cans on the screen was impressive, but it was nothing more than a standard adaptive cruise control when driving. It also stopped at every traffic light whether it was green, yellow or red.

Another surprising feature was the yoke replacing a traditional steering wheel. Again, this is a feature more popular with race cars than pickup trucks, but it functioned well. It does not rotate fully, instead going about 180 degrees or so for a full turn. Input needed is minimal when changing lanes. The ease also comes from the vehicle’s four-wheel steering and steer-by-wire system.

Both steering features are emerging technologies being used or looked into by other automakers.

The four-wheel steer makes it so a large vehicle such as the Cybertruck or GMC Hummer, which also features it on its rear wheels, can turn more tightly than a traditional truck. It’s more similar to the turn radius of a car, which helps maneuver the vehicle into tighter places and parking spots.

The steer-by-wire is harder to describe. The system uses electronics and software to control a vehicle’s steering without a mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the wheels. It feels almost like a racing yoke for a video game or aircraft rather than a traditional vehicle.

“You can make it perform much differently. … It gives you much more of a performance bandwidth,” said Terry Woychowski, president of automotive at engineering consulting firm Caresoft Global.

Woychowski, a former GM executive whose company has tested and benchmarked the Cybertruck, said the steer-by-wire feature is “discretionary.” But he described the change in the vehicle’s electrical architecture that powers all of its systems as “bare bones, engineering efficiency” that has been a needed change for years.

The Cybertruck features a 48-volt architecture to power the components of the vehicle. Doing so allows for additional electrical bandwidth for a vehicle and eliminates the need for a traditional 12-volt battery to power things such as windows, seats and headlights.

Tesla is the first to offer such a 48-volt system on a pure EV. Tesla CEO Elon Musk infamously sent competitors such as Ford and GM essentially a “how-to” guide on developing such a system.

The benefit with using the higher voltage for auxiliary devices is that the same power can be supplied at a lower current. It can save weight and cost as the wiring is about half the size.

However, the system requires a complete rethinking of a vehicle’s electrical architecture that can be costly. Whether or not other automakers follow Tesla is yet to be seen.

“The bill to make the change is huge,” Woychowski said. “It really is very, very good technology to bring in. It’s long overdue. There is a direct savings from a cost and mass perspective, and for an EV that is gold.”

It’s apparent that the vehicle appeals to a sector of Americans who have the means to afford it … likely along with several other vehicles. It was the top-selling electric “truck” during the second quarter of this year, edging out the segment-leading Ford F-150 Lightning, Rivian R1T and GM’s Hummer EV and Chevy Silverado EV.

But how much appeal such a polarizing vehicle has in the long term will be determined in the coming quarters and years ahead. The Chevy El Camino and Ford Ranchero were able to last a couple decades.