Tesla’s Cybertruck will quickly make you feel like Beyoncé – but you’ll be brought back to Earth by the door handle

TESLA’s Cybertruck attracts a lot of attention. I saw a handful of headline-grabbing EV pickup trucks on a recent trip to California.

I also had the opportunity to ride around in the Tesla pickup truck at the Advanced Clean Tech Expo in Las Vegas with a few thousand other people. Interest in the truck highlighted one of its major design flaws.

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The Cybertruck is the brainchild of Elon Musk, the billionaire technologist who constantly commands headlines.

It is a large, metallic vehicle with sharp angles and a distinctive white light bar at the front.

Musk said the battery-powered pickup would sell for $39,900 in 2019. He also predicted a 2021 launch.

After production delays caused by the pandemic, the truck hit the market in November 2023 with a base price of $60,990 for the 250-mile option.

Since its launch, the Cybertruck has attracted a lot of attention to itself.

Immediately after the launch, celebrities flocked to buy the car.

Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Shaq, Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Pharrell Williams are just some of the A-list celebrities that passersby have spotted using the pickup.

There are another 11,000 iterations of the pickup on the road. Many of them reached customers in California.

No passenger vehicle looks like the Cybertruck. They are scattered along the state’s desert-flanked highways.

My head spun toward the flashy electric pickup truck every time I passed the car.

And I’m not alone.

Crowds of EV experts and enthusiasts at the Advanced Clean Tech Expo were drawn to the oddly shaped passenger vehicle.

Spectators in Las Vegas passed a series of new-age electric and hydrogen-powered garbage trucks, postal delivery vans and even high-speed police chase vehicles to get their hands on the car.

And that was exactly the problem.

The truck ditches door handles and standard vehicle body paint for door buttons embedded in bulletproof metal.

In turn, the door is more difficult to open.

About the Tesla Cybertruck

There are three trim levels for the esteemed EV pickup truck, starting at $81,000 and going up to $101,000 depending on the trim level.

With a single or triple engine configuration, the Cybertruck is more than just modern looks and sharp angles. The EV pickup truck has 600 horsepower with a dual-motor configuration, and the tri-motor reaches 834 horsepower. With 100% torque at zero RPM due to the electric motors, the truck can tow up to 11,000 pounds.

Range, despite the weight, averages 340 miles, and the Supercharger network can add between 128 and 136 miles in just 15 minutes of fast charging. Zero to 60 times for the dual and triple engine variants are less than four seconds.

While the starting price for the dual and triple motor configuration is a steep $81,895 to $101,985, a rear-wheel drive version will debut in 2025 and will start at $62,985.

Source: Car and driver

Passengers must press the button to disengage the door lock. So, they must grab the door before opening it.

It adds an unnecessary step to the common handle design that allows drivers to grab and open doors.

Musk had to explain how to open the doors to the first drivers who received their Cybertrucks at the launch event in November.

Additionally, metal is susceptible to fingerprints.

Sitting on the carpeted floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Cybertruck on display was in need of some serious cleaning after all interested customers entered.

The metal body was marked with the gnarled finger remains of dozens of previous occupants when I finally reached the truck.

Still, the unconventional design, flaws and all, remains part of the Cybertruck’s appeal.

Tesla typically doesn’t report vehicle sales figures – but the company recently recalled 11,000 Cybertrucks, indicating the number that were delivered to drivers.

That number quickly puts the company in third place for EV pickup truck sales.

Only the Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T have sold more EV pickup trucks at the same time.