If George Peppard were here to see the 2022 Tesla Cybertruck, he’d chew his cigar a little faster and maybe rub his hand at the prospect of a Damnation Alley remake. Don’t get the reference? Google it. We’ll wait. Any human who views Elon Musk’s angular stainless swipe at the lucrative half-ton market will have a similar reaction. What does it remind you of? Cylons? That hot chrome Stormtrooper from The Force Awakens? For us, it was Dean Jeffries’ gleaming truck used to fight radioactive scorpions. We really couldn’t imagine it towing a race car.
Somehow, we got a third-party look at the ultra-secret photos and spec sheet before the launch of the Cybertruck in Tesla’s Hawthorne facility on November 21. We were interested to see if it is, in fact, a truck a guy could use. Since we don’t have one to drive, let’s look at the facts and make some wild guesses.
Starting with the business end, we can’t see a receiver for a hitch but the reported towing capacity is 7,500 pounds with what we believe to be the GCVWR of 14,000 pounds and a payload capacity of 3,350 pounds. A quick cross reference with a Ford F-150 shows this to be average against the best-selling half ton.
We don’t’ expect the bed and tailgate development to be at the level of automatic fold out steps, beer coolers or gun safes but we are going to presume there will be Tesla-style tricks that certainly include automatic up and down, and it looks like there is a small storage area at the rear of the bed floor. You can’t see it in the photos, but the rumor is a roll-away tonneau cover that disappears between the fore end of the bed and the cab, like a storefront shutter in that neighborhood you don’t go into.
The bed is 6.5 x 4.5 so it is going to pass the standard sheet of plywood test with the tailgate down, like your Home Depot parts runner. We’ve also heard that the entire body is made from 3mm stainless steel, a metal that is known to be hard, but heavy. The properties of good stainless are resistance to rust and corrosion and a durable finish. In move typical of Elon Musk, the body and windshield reportedly can repel a round from your 9mm. Their words, not ours.
The cab, again, looks like something from a modern half-ton Crew Cab. There is a third seat in the front row and three seats to the rear. Since this is a Tesla, there are no gauges, just a giant touch screen. The rear view mirror is more than likely a screen as well with 360-degree cameras. Hopefully one is pointed at the trailer hitch.
We’re not sure what is under the hood, if anything. But, somewhere on the truck are a pair of electric motors that Motor Trend estimated to make around 650-700 hp and 825 lb-ft of torque if you believe in the conversion factors. There is also a three-motor “Plaid” combo that boost the calculated horsepower to 800 and torque to 1,000. The plaid reference is a nod to something faster than ludicrous speed from the movie Space Balls. Range is 300-450 miles depending on the battery options.
Would you feel comfortable backing your bass boat down the ramp or unloading the drag car in the Cybertruck? We don’t know either. As car guys, we can’t deny there is a fashion show element to what we do, and the Cybertruck is a sci-fi train wreck what will get you all the attention you need, good and bad.
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