2024 Tesla Cybertruck | Talking Cars with Consumer Reports #455

Consumer Reports has finally taken delivery of the long-awaited and much-hyped Tesla Cybertruck. We highlight many of its innovative features, polarizing styling, and driving characteristics. Additionally, we address audience questions, including how CR manages to purchase so many cars each year anonymously without staff being recognized by dealerships, and why some car manufacturers, even those known for safety like Subaru, do not make Consumer Reports' safe car list.

SHOW NOTES
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00:00 - Introduction
00:16 - Overview: 2024 Tesla Cybertruck
01:38 - Styling & Design
06:07 - Purchase Experience
08:43 - Driving Dynamics
11:51 - Steer-by-Wire System
13:57 - Visibility
15:57 - Utility
19:21 - The Issues
21:34 - Reliability
24:12 - How CR will test the Cybertruck
26:13 - Custom Care
28:07 - Living with it
29:37 - Question #1: Why some car manufacturers do not make the Consumer Reports safe car list?
33:55 - Question #2: How does CR keep its anonymity while buying so many cars each year?

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First Drive: Is Tesla Cybertruck Worth the Hype?

2024 Tesla Cybertruck

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Electric Cars and Plug-In Hybrids That Qualify For Federal Tax Credits

Guide to Car Reliability & Owner Satisfaction

[defghi]

It's unconsciousable that CR would not talk about safety. This truck can't be sold in Europe because it is a menace to everything around it. You must address safety and not just for occupants but for anyone unlucky enough to get smashed by one of these monster vehicles.

[Kurtiscott]

It’ll be fascinating to get an sober and unbiased evaluation of a vehicle that is so emphatically ridiculous.

[Jim-gwub]

Could you older gentleman have a group of people in the twenties (30s) drive this and see if they have better adaptability? Not that they can afford it, but just to understand the generational hard wiring differences between those in their 50s-60s vs 20s-30s.

[Abebe]

Cybertruck comments continue to be a phenomenon. Won't need advertising for quite awhile.

[scottvickery]

I guess you can use stainless steel cleaner (like for appliances) but you would use a lot!

[waltparus]

A Cybertruck was on display at the Navy Air Show in Virginia about a week ago. I wanted to see it up close but couldn’t get near it because it was swarming with kids who were in it and around it for hours.

[bjs]

It is iconic, like the VW Beetle, the VW Van, the Morris Mini, the PT Cruiser, etc.

[Jim-gwub]

Emailed this to CR:

CyberTruck webcast today:
First, Love the whole CR Team. Though you do have young people on staff, I think it’s viral to start a new testing/opinion line item. In the name of good science a segregated age group to designate and follow through forever. Those 18, 19, 20 year olds that are the first group in the history of the world to have had touch screens, smart tech from birth. The age group’s brains are shown to literally be wired differently. Same a hypothesis Their ability to interface with tech in: cars, etc. must be studies as compared to the traditional age groups product engagement. Why? The advancements in tech should be throttled for some ages (maybe) and full tilt for others (maybe). To not understand this is to not know the important questions to be asked. This Cyber Truck’s podcast and upcoming tech leads me to think CR and everything else needs to reevaluate their practices. Per science I think leave everything basically the same just add this specific group (segregated through build up, baseline, evaluation…). Thank you for CR and what you’ve always done.
p.s. I’m a retired special education teacher (specializing in Severe Emotional Behavioral Disorders) and observed the new human brain developments and how we've missed the mark on changing models to fit their unique makeup. I think it would significantly help CR generate new sources of revenue for the future providing data to basically every industry from here out.

[didierpuzenat]

11:58 I do not agree about the not predictable steering "issue". On a normal car, moving the steering wheel does not have the same impact in a city or on the highway, the faster you go the gentler you must be on the steering wheel. But people are ok because they are used of it. So it is the same, just a different mapping, with the advantage of a more comfortable drive.

[daniele]

I personally would rather have a bigger bed in a truck than a bigger frunk.

[directorjustin]

You guys are like the Digital Foundry of cars 😄

Or DF is the Consumer Reports of video games lol

[bjs]

Please try to not use an adjective with "unique".

[OwenMahoney]

A 12-year-old's vanity project. Pass.

[thomas]

"...yo dog, we he-rd you like controversy, so we put controversy in your controversy..." (is it weird that "irony" was supposedly the blight of the 80s?) Well, at least our trucks in 2024 look like the future--now. (Also, love so much about this. Hopefully the other aspects come along with scale and iteration.) Thank you--been looking forward to CR's assessment on this interesting vehicle/experience!

[falsificationism]

Where are the crumple zones, and did the unbreakable windows ever happen?

If so, how are emergency personnel supposed to rescue victims inside? Especially if the "door handles" aren't working (e.g., water rescue)?

[Molishious]

They commented on the thing that I thought is the most important about Cybertruck, this is that Tesla had the design first and then engineers had to make it work. That's why I think the Cybertruck was a wasted opportunity, it started out all wrong. The innovation is great, but they could have designed something with those innovations that was also practical to build and own. Instead Tesla makes a Stainless steel truck that costs 100 grand. I don't see how that advances their supposed company mission to electrify the world's transportation.

[Jay-jml]

Tesla owners are in the Elon Musk cult. 😂

[Abebe]

Enjoying convo. I'm a big fan of the truck. Saw one finally at night at fast food, lights on at the road. Finally was able to do a U-turn but disappeared by then. Northeast.

[Kirk]

Pick up trucks are so useful. Pffft. Monster trucks are even more useful.

[hereigoagain]

Saving the planet one Cybertruck at a time.