► Tesla Cybertruck faces pick-up rivals
► New EV vs Rivian R1T vs Ram 1500 TRX
► The new world order versus the old
ʻBro, what is that?’ ‘Oh wow! My first Cybertruck.’ ‘What car is that? Does it fly?’ ‘Did you build it?’ ‘Is it a concept car?’ ‘Thanks for letting us see your geometry project.’
Welcome to America and to the world of the Tesla Cybertruck. In a nation historically well versed in all things automobile, this electric pick-up confounds every norm, from manufacturing to design.
It’s easy to subscribe to the view that Tesla is the poster child for how to win at cars, with a cultural significance that stretches far beyond the number of actual vehicles it builds. And yet, if our experience of 36 hours in the new Tesla Cybertruck tells us anything, it’s that the car is so other-worldly, so completely different to anything that has ever been built before, that it leaves people agog and confused.
Ironically, in a world dominated by Elon Musk, his X musings and the pervasive internet, it’s his creation that proves there are black spots of coverage. It’s almost reassuring.
One thing is certain – the Cybertruck never fails to light up a conversation. With no Tesla badging and a shape Pythagoras would be proud of, it stuns onlookers. In 36 hours, we get every reaction from jaw-on-floor to cynicism to wide-eyed hysteria. It’s not a car that leaves anyone sitting on the fence. Nor is it a car likely to go on sale in Europe any time soon – blame myriad fundamental hurdles and, given Tesla no longer even fancies building the Model S in right-hand drive, little appetite to tackle them.
We collect it in a quiet suburban street in LA. It’s a smart area of single-storey houses, tidy roads and ever-present sunshine, and the mix of metal is more diverse than you find in Britain, with saloons, hatchbacks, SUVs, pick-ups and the odd modified car so integral to the LA scene.
Within that context, the brutality of the Tesla is stark. There isn’t a soft line on it, and its face is as welcoming as RoboCop’s. It looms large whichever way you approach it – not physically, because it’s not that huge when compared to many US trucks – but with its sheer, heavyweight design presence. Aesthetically, it simply smashes everything else out of the way. Tesla’s design chief Franz von Holzhausen wanted to create a truck with visible strength, that looked tough and was tough, using stainless steel bodywork that redefined what’s possible in manufacturing. Slabsided and uniform, there are, we’re told, no weak points; no chinks in its stainless armour.
As a piece of automotive theatre, I’ve never seen anything like it. Photos don’t do justice to the sheer arrogance of the design and you can’t prepare for the shock of first sight. A Ferrari might wow you, a Porsche might intrigue you, but nothing else grabs your head and smashes it into the nearest wall like this. It’s an assault on your senses and a scrambling of societal norms.
On the road in the Tesla Cybertruck
Moving off into LA traffic, people grin and point to an extent I haven’t experienced since I got booed by a film-premiere crowd who thought I was Jason Statham. (No, I’m not seeing that either.) Although it’s on sale, the Cybertruck is a rare sight, judging from the number of camera phones pointed our way.
The Cybertruck feels like a car for LA. Instead of the softly-softly feel of a Boston or Washington, the city has a brutal modernity – low-rise geometric buildings, all concrete and glass, where edges rule – that matches the Tesla. And yet, in stark contrast to the sledgehammer-subtle looks, the ride is forgiving as we glide onto the freeway. Baked in LA’s 24/7 sunshine, the bleached concrete hums to the sound of thousands of engines and tyres. To this bleak, pre-apocalyptic scene the Cybertruck offers an even starker (possibly Starker) vision of the future.
Plotting a course for Palm Springs, buildings are replaced by desert scrub punctuated with billboards promoting ambulance-chasing lawyers and varicose-vein removal services. The Tesla settles into a comfortable, long-legged cruise at odds with its other-worldly looks. Sure, there are idiosyncrasies – this is a Tesla, after all – but it’s nothing like as eccentric to drive as it is to look at.
Charging up the EV
Time for a first charge. Tesla’s Supercharger network continues to impress, but the Cybertruck is on the large side for some of the bays. Still, with the car having automatically pre-heated the battery, it swiftly charges at 200kW while I talk to some onlookers. (Tesla claims a 250kW peak charging capability and, like the new Macan Electric, uses split-pack charging.)
Few know it’s a pick-up truck. One roofer in his Ford F-350, complete with massive trailer carrying steel and timber, is bamboozled when I press a switch and the Tesla peels back its tonneau cover to reveal the flat bed beneath. Stripped of traditional truck proportions, Cybertruck’s pick-up utility isn’t immediately obvious. He’s impressed but doesn’t see it as a potential replacement for his Ford. This is where it gets interesting for Tesla. With Cybertruck it has entered a new battleground, one defined by partisanship and generational loyalties.
In upmarket Palm Springs – real Tesla country – people go wild for our truck. In a street scene straight out of Pleasantville, all immaculate gardens and box-fresh housing, the Cybertruck’s a rolling stainless steel scar on the landscape.
We have two other trucks with us today, the Rivian R1T and a Ram 1500 TRX, but all eyes are on the Tesla. One woman glances at the Rivian and looks glum – it’s only when she spots the Cybertruck that she breaks into a smile.
Kids go mad for it (admittedly more for the screen in the back that plays YouTube. A discourse on the dystopian, Pythagorean design language? Not so much). Someone tells me his friend is swapping out of his Ram 1500 TRX for one.
These are people who go to country clubs where the Kardashians hang out, Model X owners who think the truck’s ‘beautiful’. ‘It’s got the bells and whistles of the regular car but with the rugged bits of a truck.’
It’s interesting to hear that at least some people think of it as an alternative to a regular truck, of the kind bought by our roofer friend. Musk and Tesla have done what they always do and opened the world up, asking questions of how we perceive things and systematically challenging every long-held absolute. I thought the Cybertruck’s complete contrast to every Tesla that’s come before would put people off – you bought into Tesla because of the amazing software, the charging and the friendly, almost anonymous design language. But clearly the brand can be stretched. Perhaps Americans are more open to this sort of shift than Europeans.
There are dissenters. I later meet one couple who are the very definition of eco-conscious early adopters, having used recycled vegetable oil in their Mercedes diesel back in the early 2000s. They now own a Model 3 but they wouldn’t get a Cybertruck. ‘I don’t hate the design, but I can’t give any more to Musk.’ To them, the weight of the Cybertruck, caused by the design- and production-led decision to use stainless steel, is a compromise too far – ‘it’s too left-field’. But they know it’ll sell: ‘Musk still has god status in the Valley.’
There’s no ignoring Elon Musk and his cult of personality, his sheer chutzpah, his grip on the globe. The car is him, he is the car. Towards the end of the day we head into Twin Palms, a beautifully quiet and manicured suburb where the distinctive butterfly-roof houses designed by William Krisel align perfectly with the Tesla’s triangles. Parked up and chatting to a guy with a pair of glorious Detroit cruisers (a 1961 Cadillac and ’56 Buick), we suddenly spot a SpaceX rocket blasting up into the atmosphere. Sharp white vapour trail against the inky blue night sky, it’s a movie-script moment that illustrates how one citizen can exert influence on Earth and in space. Musk. Everywhere.
CAR’s guide to the best electric cars on sale today
The comparison test: Tesla Cybertruck vs Rivian R1T vs Ram 1500 TRX
Dawn. Desert. Wind turbines.
In these early hours, the sun lights the earth but is missing the bleach-stark white of midday. Instead, a softer glow sweeps across the scrubland we’re standing in, surrounded by tumbleweed and over 4000 wind turbines, gently whump-whumping in the early morning breeze.
This being the middle of nowhere, we’re not entirely alone. A couple arrive in their knackered Toyota Camry, park up about 30 yards away, appear to smoke something and then ‘fall asleep’ for three hours. Palm Springs itself is friendly and immaculate, but you’re never far away from people struggling to cope with some of the more unfortunate elements of modern life.
The contrast to our three trucks couldn’t be more vivid. The least expensive one costs more than $85,000. They represent 21st century conspicuous consumption at its most ostentatious.
And yet, even between them, you couldn’t pick a more disparate bunch. The Tesla, as we’ve already discovered, is the black sheep; the awkward squad that won’t toe the line or continue the same trajectory as the last 100 years of history. Brutal, disruptive, proud.
Parked in this bleak landscape it fits right in, offering a commentary on both the arid desert around us and the potential for a game-changing future if we don’t change our ways. Next to our other trucks, and with few other vehicles around to dilute the effect, the bravery of the design becomes even more obvious. It’s not a car where you discover hidden lines the more you look at it, but it nevertheless shocks every time you glance in its direction.
Introducing the Rivian R1T
Even though the Rivian R1T is also all-electric, the two couldn’t be further apart. While the Tesla wants to change the world by stamping all over it, the Rivian is the friendly rival who is happy to hug it out. With a face that looks as threatening as Pikachu, it’s all warm sentiments and jolly adventure with a smile. It’s the most approachable car I’ve come across since the Fiat 500, despite weighing over three tonnes.
Not so the Ram 1500 TRX (Ram now being strictly speaking a standalone brand, but many of us habitually refer to it as a Dodge Ram), with its publicity material talking of it being ‘the apex predator’. This is the baby Ram truck with the wick turned up, a legacy car from a legacy brand, all traditional V8 muscle and enough air scoops around the front to swallow a small town.
Rivian and Tesla have parked their tanks in the middle of quite a substantial lawn, one that’s sacrosanct to huge numbers of more traditional manufacturers. America builds and buys vast numbers of trucks each year, the majority of which match the Ram’s ethos. Using the broadest definition, there are 61.5 million trucks on US roads. It’s a large market, but one largely confined to the US. Pedestrian impact tests, legislation, fuel economy, sheer bloody size – there are any number of reasons why they don’t travel well.
Local tax breaks help. It’s why, when we mention the price of the Cybertruck in Palm Springs, no one falls off their chair. A $100,000 pick-up in the UK would have people writing spittle-flecked letters to their MPs, but in the US business owners can write off 100 per cent of the value against their company so long as the car weighs more than 6000lb (2722kg). In an age when we’re all trying to be a bit more eco, it does seem slightly perverse. But them’s the rules.
The Cybertruck in detail
So, to the Tesla, wilfully different and a two-fingered salute to convention. Want to make an impact? Turn up to the AGM for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in one of these.
Everything is contrary about it, starting with what it’s made of. Stainless steel is a notoriously difficult material to work with, its lack of malleability making it tough to press and create curves. Tesla wanted the brutalist triangular look with flat panels in order to give the appearance of designed-in strength. But flat steel is inherently weak – normally it needs a bend or a curve to give it rigidity. So the Cybertruck’s steel had to be thick. But cars still need edges and lap- ping joins, where panels meet, only thick stainless steel doesn’t bend around tight radii. It’s an engineer’s nightmare. To be fair to Tesla, on the Cybertruck it has largely overcome its traditional problem with panel gaps, aside from a lack of consistency around the bonnet. And there’s a sharp leading edge above the daytime running lights that would give a Euro NCAP assessor a heart attack.
There is something wonderfully invigorating about Tesla’s persistence. No one else could have been so bloody minded about keeping faith with the frankly daft early sketch from von Holzhausen and sticking so rigidly to the stainless mantra.
You can’t but admire the firm for it. The world would be a dull place if we all kept following the same pattern, with our only inspiration the other sheep in front.
Against that, the 122kWh battery (estimated – Tesla doesn’t give figures) and tri-motor ‘Cyberbeast’ set-up (one front, two rear) is almost conventional. But have no fear, the performance lives up to the hype. In Beast mode – not for Tesla to have normal names like Sport – the Cybertruck will hit 0-60mph in under three seconds.
Performance, specs
The Tesla Cybertruck is ludicrously quick; fast enough to make you feel sick after two acceleration runs. Gut-wrenching speed is nothing new in EVs, but the Cybertruck’s delivery is particularly brutal. It hits you right in your belly, with your brain refusing to compute the sensations that it’s getting from your stomach and eyes. It’s stupidly amusing, repeated full-blooded starts wouldn’t be a daily trick for me if I owned one.
More oddness inside. Normal steering wheel? Don’t be daft, this is a ‘squircle’, sir. I’m as traditional as the next chap – I own a flat cap, don’t you know – but this isn’t a daft idea. Thanks to the variable ratio and drive-by-wire steering, you only need to turn it 340deg for a full lock-to-lock manoeuvre. Toyota and Lexus do something similar, and it works.
Leaving the wind turbines behind and heading to the centre of Palm Springs, it’s an easy car to swing around; out on the open road, it doesn’t come unstuck at higher speeds. Our route doesn’t involve many UK-spec tight bends, but it’s easy to build a flow with the Cybertruck. It’s more intuitive than the Ram, which feels a bit cumbersome in comparison.
The Tesla is easily the most car-like vehicle here, with the sort of ride quality that’s unheard of in regular pick-ups. It copes well with longer undulations and only comes unstuck over really sharp irregularities, where the air suspension struggles to cope with the wheel control. The Rivian manages this better.
The Rivian on the road
Blasting towards Palm Springs, the heat of the day pinging off the Tesla’s flat panels, the Cybertruck leaves the Rivian in its wake. This is the quad-motor R1T and it has 835bhp, only 10 off the Tesla, but it doesn’t quite punch like the Cybertruck. Based around a body-on-frame chassis, unlike the Tesla with its more car-like monocoque construction, the Rivian has taken the traditional truck model and made it eco-friendly for the 21st century.
This is the truck you’d introduce to your parents, all polite manners and polished shoes. Its fit and finish belie the youth of the company – Rivian only started building the R1s in 2021 – to the point where this start-up manufacturer can easily hold its own against both Tesla and Ram. And BMW and Mercedes, come to think of it.
It’s not a truck that reveals its qualities immediately. The Tesla is the schoolyard bully whereas you need to make the introduction to the Rivian. As such, it’s not one that people leap to in a supermarket car park in Palm Springs. But what’s interesting is how fired-up bystanders get when you start to explain it to them.
Neat tricks abound, speaking to everyone’s desire to be Adventure Parent; a torch in the door, a removable Bluetooth speaker in the centre dash, an enormous frunk with drain hole so it can double up as an ice bucket, a vast tunnel behind the seats that an actual human can climb into, power sockets everywhere. There’s even a compressor in the flatbed.
Like the Tesla, it’s on air suspension, with the potential to lower or raise the ride height considerably. It’s a brilliantly fluid car, with light steering and great body control – unlike more traditional trucks, it doesn’t feel like the body is disconnected from the frame. Instead of an old-school anti-roll bar, it has electro-hydraulic roll control and the quad-motor set-up offers torque vectoring that helps pivot the car into corners. It’s no sports car, but it can react to inputs with a speed that belies its weight. It certainly bodes well for the upcoming rally-esque R3X.
There’s nothing contrary in the R1 – there are even indicator stalks, unlike the Tesla’s infernal steering-wheel system – with two screens and beautiful wood trim framing the dash. The Tesla’s interior might be clean and simple, but the Rivian wins hearts and minds more effectively.
Over in the Dodge corner: the Ram 1500 TRX
Still, in the centre of Palm Springs, the Tesla driver is the one who’s mobbed. But wait. Here comes a Ram fan! ‘Sweet ride, man. Mine’s a 1500 with the Hemi, but that TRX is sick.’ If there was a prize for aggression on this test, the Ram would win it comfortably – with a sill height that is in line with the top of my thighs and a supercharged 6.2-litre Hemi V8 that sounds as good as you’d expect, subtle doesn’t come easily to this truck.
It has ‘jump detection’ (a system that detects when a wheel is in the air to prevent drivetrain power spikes), which tells you all you need to know about where it’s aimed. Off-road. And fast.
Whereas the other two know they need to offer off-road ability to appease customers who like the idea of occasionally leaving the highway, the Ram was born with the words printed on its chassis rails. I’ve never seen a lower suspension arm this thick, while sections of the frame are even hydroformed so that there’s less need for strength-sapping welds. There are eight drive modes to select from, including one called Baja. Excellent – that’s the one for a gentle drive out of Palm Springs.
There’s no way to disguise the fundamental age of the Ram. Despite being supercharged, its engine and eight-speed transmission will never be as responsive as the others. And weirdly, for all the brilliance of the noise the V8 makes, I didn’t find myself missing it when I jumped in the others.
It is completely hilarious to drive in an oh-my-god-how-do-I-control- this-thing kind of way. It runs expensive Bilstein dampers but the suspension can’t keep the body in check as it reacts wildly to each throttle or brake input. It’s not sophisticated but it is great fun so long as you’re prepared to adapt to the car.
Turn either the Tesla or Rivian into a bend and they hook up. But the Ram, on its gnarly tyres, rolls in with understeer so you have to adjust and play with steering angle and throttle. Technically it’s not as accomplished, but it certainly keeps you on your toes.
Show it a dirt track, though, and the Ram is transformed. All the flex and movement now plays into its hands, to the point where you can do ridiculous speeds across serious ruts. It even comes with a power and torque recorder so you can see just what outrageous manoeuvres you’ve pulled. This is not a car that’s afraid of the world.
Out here, in the wilds of America, it still has a place. But surely its long-term future is largely as a tool, not as all-round transport. As a work vehicle for hauling stuff, few vehicles will ever get close to the flexibility and power of traditional trucks. But when the Rivian and Tesla are doing such a great job of answering what the truck will look like beyond the electrification of the automotive industry, the leisure side of the Ram should, if we all care about the environment, fall away.
Heck – our electric duo can even tow more than the Ram. Given the size of the US pick-up market, if these and other electric trucks sell well, the difference to the environment will be huge.
Verdict
We arrive at the Nude Bowl, an off-grid skate park based around an old swimming pool from a long-closed nudist colony. Graffitied and littered with smashed beer bottles (and a worrying number of spent shotgun cartridges), it’s acquired an almost mythical status thanks to its remote location. Looking over all three as they’re parked up here, with desert and scrub bushes blasted dry by the relentless heat of the sun that’s topping 20deg even in March, it’s striking how bleak it all is. Palm Springs hints at civilisation in the far distance but there’s not much else out here. Even lizards and flies are conspicuous by their absence.
But the wind-turbine tips scraping the horizon show there is potential. Just like the skaters have resurrected the Nude Bowl every time the police fill it in (turns out the locals and authorities aren’t huge fans of the generator parties held there), so Tesla and Rivian have shown there is a way. There are options. The choice is how other-worldly we want the solution to look.
Tesla Cybertruck Cyberbeast specs
Price: $99,990
Powertrain: 122kWh battery (est), three e-motors, all-wheel drive
Performance: 845bhp, n/a lb ft, 2.6sec 0-60mph,130mph
Weight: 3104kg
Efficiency: 2.3 miles per kWh, 320-mile range, 0g/km CO2 (EPA)
On sale: Now
Rivian R1T specs
Price: $88,800
Powertrain: 149kWh battery, four e-motors, all-wheel drive
Performance: 835bhp, 908lbft, 3.0sec 0-60mph, 110mph
Weight: 3242kg
Efficiency: 2.2 miles per kWh, 328-mile range, 0g/km CO2 (EPA)
On sale: Now
Ram 1500 TRX specs
Price: $85,500
Powertrain: 6166cc supercharged V8, eight-speed auto, all-wheel drive
Performance: 702bhp 650lb ft, 4.5sec 0-60mph, 118mph
Weight: 2880kg
Efficiency: 14.4mpg (WLTP), 748g/km CO2 (EPA)
On sale: Now