CarBrandLogos archive · Tesla · 2023

TeslaCybertruck

Stainless steel, no paint shop and no curves, in a segment built on convention.

Photo: Mr.choppers · CC BY-SA 3.0

The story

A defining chapter in Tesla history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Tesla Cybertruck, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

American full-size pickups are the most conservative product category in the industry, sold on capability and familiarity to buyers who replace one truck with a very similar truck. The Cybertruck, shown in 2019 and in production from November 2023, ignored all of that. Franz von Holzhausen drew a faceted wedge with no compound curves, built from cold-rolled stainless steel used as an exterior structural skin, which removed the need for a paint shop entirely and imposed the angular shape as an engineering consequence.

Tesla Cybertruck damaged window · u/Kruzat · CC BY-SA 4.0

tesla-cybertruck-window-steel-ball-before

Design and engineering

The reveal became famous for the wrong reason when a demonstration of the armoured glass ended with two broken windows on stage. The production car arrived four years later, heavier and more expensive than the figures announced at that event, with a rear-motor version and dual- and tri-motor all-wheel-drive variants, steer-by-wire with rear-wheel steering, and a 48-volt electrical architecture unusual in a production vehicle.

tesla-cybertruck-window-steel-ball-before · u/Kruzat · CC BY-SA 4.0

In production

Sales have fallen well short of the reservation numbers Tesla accumulated, and it has been subject to several recalls. It is built only at Gigafactory Texas. Whatever else it is, it is the most visually uncompromising vehicle any large manufacturer has put into series production in decades, and it has demonstrated that pickup buyers are harder to convert than Tesla assumed.

Tesla ASM Lineup of Vehicles · Steve Jurvetson · CC BY 2.0

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

2023–present

Designer

Franz von Holzhausen

Body

4-door crew cab

Technical specification

The Cybertruck, in detail.

Production: November 2023 – present
Class: Full-size pickup truck
Body style: 4-door crew cab
Layout: Rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout; Rear motor, rear-wheel drive ; Dual-motor, four-wheel-drive layout; Dual- or tri-motor, all-wheel drive
Transmission: Single-speed fixed (15:1 ratio)
Designer: Franz von Holzhausen
Assembly: United States: Austin, Texas (Gigafactory Texas)
Manufacturer: Tesla, Inc.