There’s no such thing as a CyberTruck

When Elon Musk introduced the CyberTruck in 2019, he made clear this would be a truck like no other. That iconic and polarizing design wasn't just due to a quirky engineer who spent too much time watching Mad Max. It was required by the nature of the vehicle Tesla was creating.

The angular form was necessary because the CyberTruck wasn’t going to be built using unibody construction, like most cars, or body-on-rail like most pickups and large SUVs. it would be unique; a truck whose basic form was defined by a new type of vehicle architecture.

"We moved the mass to the outside," said Musk. "We created an exoskeleton."

Rather than the design of previous trucks, where the structural rigidity came from the underlying frame, the strength of the CyberTruck would be in its folded steel body. It would be bulletproof. It would shrug off blows from a sledgehammer. It would have a range of 500 miles, and it would roll out at a starting price of $39,900.

Most of all, it would be constructed like a piece of heavy metal origami. The CyberTruck's exoskeleton would be made by folding pieces of heavy stainless steel. The design might be odd, but the result would be a body that was also the vehicle's frame, moving most of the mass to the outside of the truck and creating so much internal volume that the two-row cabin came with six roomy seats.

Over the years that followed, Musk heaped on more promises. CyberTruck, according to the Tesla CEO, would employ the same "ultra hard" steel that SpaceX uses in building its Starship rocket, employ a new type of battery technology, and even be capable of serving as a boat.

After years of delays and promises, Tesla finally put a vehicle on sale in 2024 at $100,000 to $120,000. That vehicle used the same old battery technology, had a range of under 350 miles, and came with five seats. It also made a very poor boat.

During a botched jet ski launch, one Ventura, California man accidentally threw his luxury truck into reverse, rolling down a ramp and into the harbor's cold waters. Did the vehicle thrive as a watercraft, as Musk would have buyers believe? No: the driver made it out okay, but his prized Cybertruck ended up waterlogged.

The "luxury" truck went to the bottom of the harbor and had to be retrieved with the help of the Ventura Fire Department, Harbor Patrol, Coast Guard, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. When it was dragged back onto land, the truck was very, very dead.

The failure to float is not the biggest problem with the vehicle that eventually hit the road. Some earlier recalls showed that Tesla's big not-a-boat was shoddily constructed, but the latest recall of almost every "CyberTruck" on the road underscores something far more critical.

Tesla is recalling the cars because of the risk of a stainless-steel exterior trim panel detaching from the vehicle, causing a potential road hazard and raising the chances of a crash, it said.

How can a strip of stainless steel peel away from a solid exoskeleton that forms the body of the truck? It can't. But the vehicle that Tesla eventually rolled out doesn't have an exoskeleton. It also doesn't have a body-on-frame construction like full-size Ford, Chevy, or Dodge pickups. It's just the same unibody construction used on Tesla's other vehicles.

As AutoEvolution points out, the production vehicle just bolts on the outside stainless steel panels and carries them around "like a sack of potatoes."

"It'd be like if you took the Model Y from Texas and said: 'Let's make this thing a truck.'"

And, as it turns out, some of those steel panels aren't even screwed in place. They're attached by glue that falls apart over time. Then pieces of the truck simply fall off.

That's what the latest recall highlights: What Tesla is now selling as a "CyberTruck" is not a CyberTruck. Or at least it has no real relationship with the prototype Musk rolled onto the stage in 2019. This is a fundamentally different vehicle, made using bog standard technology designed not to make it rugged but to make it cheap.

The iconic shape, which was supposedly required because the vehicle was being built using that folded steel exoskeleton, isn't actually necessary. There is no exoskeleton. It's a suit. It's a costume.

This is a Model Y doing cosplay.

The reason is simple enough: Tesla discovered that they could not build the vehicle Musk had promised. It was impractical, far too expensive to manufacture, and possibly downright unbuildable. But instead of admitting that, they just ... dropped a metal box over a regular car and told reservation holders that their vehicle was ready.

It's hard to say that the "CyberTruck" is a complete scam. Those Musk fans who shelled out $100,000, or $120,000, or $244,000 certainly got something. There's some genuinely interesting tech in the vehicle that was finally delivered, from its steer-by-wire control system to its high-voltage electronics.

But mostly what CyberTrucks got was taken. Because the thing in their driveway? It's absolutely not the post-apocalyptic wonder machine that Musk promised them—but it was what Elon needed to deliver to collect a new $46 billion pay package.

Happy motoring.