Watch the Tesla Cybertruck haul a Ford F-150 in a tug-of-war contest.
Those watching the Cybertruck reveal last week likely saw this video already, but for the rest of us, it’s time to see what a Cybertruck can do against the competition. The best-selling pickup in North America is still the F-150 (for now), so that means all comparisons will be against the Ford pickup.
And in this case, that means hosting a tug-of-war contest on an empty road.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted out this video on Sunday to showcase the Cybertruck’s power. We were never given specific figures on the Cybertruck, but we do know it will come in single, dual, and tri-motor configurations, with the triple motor setup being the most powerful. It will have three electric motors driving both axles for AWD, and be capable of sprinting from zero to 60 mph in just 2.9 seconds.
Based on the fact it’s an electric pickup and how fast it can accelerate, estimates online point to a truck that weighs around 6,000 lbs and has close to 800 hp. Which is a lot more than even the most powerful F-150.
From the video, we can see that the F-150 is only spinning its rear tires, so we know immediately it’s a RWD model. It also seems to have the grille, wheels, and doors from a Lariat trim, which likely means it has a 2.7-L EcoBoost twin-turbo V6 under the hood. This means 325 horsepower and 400 lb-ft of torque, a towing capacity of 8,250 lbs, and a weight of roughly 4,600 lbs.
In a tug of war, weight and power are all that matters. So when the Cybertruck starts pulling, it’s the F-150 that gets tugged along with it despite its meager protests.
Critics of the test point out that the 2.7-L V6 is built for fuel economy and not for towing, but even if it were equipped with the 3.0-L diesel or the 5.0-L V8, it seems unlikely to have changed the outcome. The Cybertruck just has way more power and weighs significantly more than any other production model pickup on the road today.