Tesla Cybertruck: our full verdict on Elon Musk’s standout supertruck with 8-bit styling

What’s good?

• Standout style
• Great range
• Smooth and refined

What’s not so good? 

• Lousy rear vision
• Plain interior
• No head-up display

Is the Tesla Cybertruck a good car?

The Tesla Cybertruck isn’t like other pickup trucks. It looks like something designed for a Star Trek set, but the designer was using Minecraft to work out the styling. It’s almost alien to look at, with its angles and its rugged stainless steel body panels. Distinctive? Yes, but also divisive — and not just because of Elon Musk.

Those stainless steel panels can’t be bent and shaped like conventional car bodies, so the Cybertruck looks as if it has lots of odd gaps in between the panels. Really, though, that’s down to the qualities of the metal, rather than the quality of the car. Or, that’s maybe just a really good excuse.

The doors open by pressing a little hidden button on the pillars, and they’re frameless at the top, with just the glass above the door panel. Speaking of glass, the Cybertruck has the largest windscreen panel of any production car. And the largest windscreen wiper. The headlights are actually hidden under the front panel, down low.

On the inside, the Cybertruck couldn’t be anything other than a Tesla, with a big central touchscreen, a tiny steering wheel, and basically nothing else on the dashboard. Everything is controlled through the screen — no, everything — so it’s just as well that it’s responsive and fairly easy to find your way around.

Tesla Cybertruck: electric range, battery and charging data

Range: 250-470 miles
Battery size: 123kWh
Max charge speed: 250kW
Charge time DC: Up to 136 miles added in 15 minutes
Charge port location: Rear left
Power outputs: 315hp / 600hp / 845hp

Annoyingly, there’s no head-up display, and the indicator controls on the steering wheel are fiddly, as are the on-screen door mirror adjusters. Fit and finish is okay, but perhaps not quite as solid as you might expect given that the Cybertruck’s price touches $100,000 in the US market.

It looks as if the Cybertruck should have seats for three in the front, but instead there’s a big storage area where a middle seat would go. There are three seats in the back, but headroom is quite limited, so go gently if you’re driving off road with people in the rear, or they’ll bash their heads on the big glass roof.

The load space, under a retractable tonneau cover that’s so strong you can jump up and down on it, holds more than 2,800 litres of whatever you want to carry, and there’s a massive ‘frunk’ (or froot, if you prefer) in the nose, which opens electrically like the Thunderbirds toy of your dreams. There’s also under-floor storage in the rear, if you want to keep stuff tucked away, and the maximum load weight is 1,134kg, while the front boot doubles as a picnic seat.

To drive, the Cybertruck is far smoother and more refined than a conventional pickup truck with a hefty separate chassis. Acceleration in the three-motor Cyberbeast version is staggering, with 0-60mph coming up in as little as 2.6 seconds.

The active steering — which uses computers to turn the front wheels, rather than having any physical connection — is super-sensitive, and a bit jittery, but the steering wheel, which now has a top bit, is much better than the ‘yoke’ used in the Model S.

Depending on the model, the Cybertruck boasts as much as 470 miles of range, and the battery pack uses the latest tech for its cells which are supposed to be bigger, tougher, and more reliable than older Teslas. Charging from Tesla’s Supercharger network makes long journeys a doddle.

It’s certainly a polarising truck, the Cybertruck, but it’s also one that breaks new ground in so many ways. It’s not officially on sale in the UK, but you can in theory buy one in the US and have it shipped here, although there may be some regulatory hurdles to navigate.

How much is the Tesla Cybertruck?

The Tesla Cybertruck isn’t officially available in the UK, but in the US it costs from between $74,000 and $94,000 for the top-spec high-performance ‘Cyberbeast’ model. Those prices translate into £58,770 up to £74,600 but it’s doubtful that the prices would be exactly the same if Tesla ever officially imports the Cybertruck here. Making it fully legal and type-approved for Europe and the UK is an expense and effort that Tesla doesn’t seem to want to make at the moment. The only other all-electric pickups on sale in the UK right now come from the Maxus range, and it’s fair to say that the Cybertruck is a lot better than those.

Performance and drive comfort

Amazing smoothness but the steering takes getting used to

In town

Forward visibility through that massive windscreen and over the stubby nose is brilliant, but rear visibility is… nil — the cover over the load bed blocks the rear, so you’re limited to a small rear-view camera display on the touchscreen.

The Cybertruck is so smooth at low speeds, and doesn’t have the bounciness of a conventional pickup. It’s super-refined and comfortable thanks to air suspension and active dampers. The computerised steering is very sensitive, and doesn’t have the slack that most pickups suffer from, so the Cybertruck can feel a bit ‘flighty’ at times, but once you recalibrate your brain to the feel, it starts to become a bit more normal.

If we were driving the Cybertruck on British streets, to be honest it would just be too big and too wide. It’s designed for Dallas, not Dunstable, but the all-round radar and camera system helps to keep an eye on where other traffic and obstacles are. The constant-on feed from the cameras can be a bit distracting though.

The regenerative braking brings you down to a complete stop and the active steering is brilliant at low speeds, allowing you to manoeuvre with just a flick of the wrists. Those stainless steel panels mean you won’t need to worry about anyone bashing into you with a shopping trolley…

On the motorway

The Cybertruck’s refinement and comfort continue out on the motorway, where the air suspension does an incredibly good job of smothering big expansion joints. In theory, it does have Tesla’s autopilot driver assistance systems, but in other models that has been shown to be less than entirely reliable, although it should be fine on motorways where the traffic environment is a little simpler.

There’s very little road noise, even on chunky off-road tyres.

With the optional range extender — basically the battery pack from a Model 3 which sits in the load bed — the Cybertruck can manage up to 470 miles on one charge, and Tesla’s Supercharger network means charging up is easy-peasy. We calculated that the Cyberbeast model can stretch its range to a real-world 294 miles on one charge, pretty close to Tesla’s claimed 320 miles.

On a twisty road

The active steering that makes the Cybertruck feel occasionally twitchy is a mixed blessing here, as it turns in quickly, but there’s not much feel nor feedback so you’re never quite sure what the front wheels are actually doing.

Beyond that, the Cybertruck — although quick — is really just too big and heavy to be much fun on a twisty road, although it’s way smoother and more agile than rapid petrol-powered alternatives from Ford and Ram Trucks. On a UK B-road, the Cybertruck’s width would be a limiting factor.

Space and practicality

Space is good up front, but tight in the rear and the boot isn’t brilliant

Between the seats, there’s a large storage box, two big cupholders (American-spec cupholders at that…) and angled slots for wireless phone charging. There’s enough room in the open storage space below the dashboard for a big backpack, or even a compact suitcase, while the front door bins are a good size.

The glovebox, which can be opened either by using the touchscreen or the voice controls, is a slide-out drawer on the passenger’s side, and is reasonably spacious. Legroom and headroom are plentiful in the front, and the front seats are good too, although they’re not very body hugging.

Space in the back seats

Kneeroom in the back is excellent, but the sharply angled roof means that anyone much over six feet tall will struggle a little for headroom. Plus, if you’re driving over big off-road bumps — well, it is a pickup after all — those in the back are likely to bash their heads off the big glass roof.

The floor is completely flat, with plenty of space under the front seats for your feet. There’s also a nifty control screen in the back for climate control, and also for moving the front passenger seat back and forth, assuming no-one’s sitting in it of course.

There are three individual seats across the back, which means you can carry three adults, but more importantly there are three ISOFIX anchor points for child car seats, and with rear doors that open to 90 degrees, it’s easy to load up your family. Even the seat bases flip upwards vertically, like in a Honda Jazz, to allow you to carry tall objects upright in the back.

Boot space

Pickups don’t have boots, they have load beds and the Cybertruck’s is bigger than that of some alternatives — notably the Ford F-150 Lightning and the Rivian R1T — and it gets a retracting cover that’s so tough you can jump up and down on it.

You can load up the Cybertruck with 2,831 litres of luggage, or 1,134kg depending on whether you’re loading by size or by weight. There’s also under-floor storage which, if you like, you can fill with ice and cold drinks, and simply remove the drain plug at the bottom to let all of the melt-water out when you’re finished with your picnic.

There are lots of useful tie-down points too (which double as bottle openers!) and there’s lots of space in the frunk (or froot) in the nose, which opens up electrically, the whole blunt nose of the Cybertruck motoring skywards as you do it. It’ll hold as much as 200kg of stuff, and it doubles as a handy outdoor seat.

Interior style, infotainment, and accessories

Excellent screen, but it needs a head-up display

The interior of the Cybertruck is very, very Tesla-y. You get one massive central touchscreen which controls everything and which is also your instrument panel. It would be better if Tesla added a head-up display, so you didn’t need to keep looking at the main screen to check your speed, but it seems to just be a Tesla thing not to have one.

The tiny steering wheel is a massive improvement on the open-top ‘yoke’ used in the Model S saloon, as there’s a top section which means you always have something to grab hold of. The steering wheel controls — which include the indicators as there are no column stalks — are a little fiddly, but at least the big screen is fairly easy to use, and is very responsive.

Fit and finish is decent, but some of the materials used are maybe not up to what you’d expect in a top-spec, $100,000 Cyberbeast model.

Tech includes very good voice control (which even opens the slide-out glove box) and the usual Tesla games and clever touches on the big screen, which should keep you entertained when you need to stop for a charge.

Electric range, charging and tax

The Cybertruck does seem to hit its claimed range marks, and on our test, against Tesla’s claim of a 320 mile range for the Cyberbeast version, we were seeing a genuine 294 miles, which is a good effort. The regular version stretches that to 340 miles, while the rear-wheel drive model can go for only 250 miles, thanks to a smaller battery. That said, Tesla does offer a ‘range extender’ pack, which is basically an extra battery that sits in the load bed, which brings the maximum possible range up to 470 miles.

In tax terms, anyone thinking of buying a Cybertruck needs to remember that the rules on crew-cab pickups are changing in April 2025, and they will then be taxed as regular passenger cars. While the Cybertruck’s electric power means it will avoid the worst of any potential tax increases, it looks very much as if the tax rates between electric cars and petrol or diesel models will become ever more ‘normalised’ in the coming years.

Safety and security

The Cybertruck hasn’t yet been crash-tested by either Euro NCAP, or its equivalent in the US, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Given its sheer size and apparent ruggedness, it ought to be pretty safe, but Tesla has been criticised in the past by safety organisations for how reliable and safe its electronic driver aids are, as well as being rapped over the knuckles for the claim of having ‘Full Self Driving’ which patently isn’t any such thing.

Reliability and problems

This is a very difficult question, and not only because the Cybertruck is new. Tesla regularly gets blasted for its variable build quality, with some cars seemingly built like tanks, and some seemingly built like plastic model tanks. Electric motors and batteries are inherently robust and long-lived, which bodes well, but there’s certainly the possibility of trouble in other areas.

The Cybertruck, as noted, isn’t sold in the UK yet, but the Tesla Model 3 finished second overall in the Driver Power Top 50 Cars To Own survey, albeit it didn’t get a great rating in terms of build quality and reliability. Tesla as a brand came second in the Driver Power customer satisfaction survey, so clearly owners love their cars, but 37% of them reported faults with their vehicles, which is on the high side.

Tesla Cybertruck FAQs

Q: What are the negatives about the Cybertruck?
A: The Cybertruck is a deeply polarising vehicle, both in terms of its styling and Tesla’s reputation in general. It’s a very Marmite car, one that mixes incredible abilities with some cheap interior fixtures and some irritations.

Q: What’s so good about the Tesla Cybertruck?
A: The Tesla Cybertruck, while noting that it’s a car which will sharply divide opinion, is also really talented, with a good range, fast charging, smooth ride, great refinement, and huge levels of practicality.

Q: Will the Tesla Cybertruck come to the UK?
A: Not officially and not any time soon. You can theoretically import one yourself, but as yet the Cybertruck isn’t homologated for sale in the UK nor the rest of Europe.

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