Tesla has revealed its new electric pickup, and it looks like nothing we’ve ever seen before.
Well, Musk did warn us that his Tesla pickup truck would be very cyberpunk and take its influence from sci-fi movies like Blade Runner, and he was right. This thing looks like it’d be right at home on a movie set and not rolling down the streets of Los Angeles.
They call it the Cybertruck--for obvious reasons. Musk revealed Tesla’s latest creation at a presentation last night where he put the Cybertruck through some on-stage antics that involved smashing its glass with a steel ball-bearing and beating its doors with a sledgehammer.
We’ll circle back to that in a minute, but first the stats. Tesla will offer three variants of the Cybertruck, one with a single-motor driving the rear axle, a dual-motor AWD model, and a tri-motor AWD model. The single-motor Cybertruck will have a range of 250 miles and do 0-60 mph in 6.5 seconds, while the tri-motor model will have a range of 500 miles and do 0-60 in just 2.9 seconds. The dual-motor model will fall in between, with a 300-mile range and 0-60 of 4.5 seconds.
Even the least-powerful Cybertruck will have incredible performance for a pickup, but they all have fantastic payload and towing. Thanks to standard adaptive air suspension, each model has 3,500 lbs of payload, while the base single-motor model gets a towing capacity of 7,500 lbs. The Tri Motor AWD model (as it's being called currently) has a towing capacity of over 14,000 lbs.
Since the Cybertruck is a Tesla, it'll have optional 2400kW Supercharging and self-driving Autopilot, but since it's a pickup it'll also have an on-board power inverted so it can be used as a generator for power tools. Ditto that for an air compressor for pneumatic tools. Despite the look, this is a workman's pickup first and foremost.
And now for the weird part: this thing is bulletproof. A stainless steel exoskeleton and armored glass are said to stop bullets up to 9mm, although there was a bit of a hiccup on stage when a steel ball shattered the Cybertruck's glass. Musk said they'd "fix it in post." There's also an optional cabin pressurization model that can have limited amphibious driving and could even drive on Mars if it were to ever reach the Red Planet.
The single-motor model starts at $39,900, while the Tri Motor AWD starts at $69,900. Orders are available now but don't expect deliveries until late 2021.
(Source: Tesla)