We Saw the Tesla Cybertruck Up Close, Panel Gaps and All

It’s officially Tesla Cybertruck week. Customer deliveries are scheduled to begin Thursday, November 30, according to Tesla, and cordoned-off Cybertrucks are popping up at Tesla stores across the country. I headed to one in Manhattan on Tuesday to take our first live look at the long-awaited pickup. While it wasn’t as janky-looking as past “release candidate” prototypes spotted on the road and at car shows, this Cybertruck had a couple odd kinks—as well as some curious design choices. But in the eyes of its beholders, it’s good enough.

A Tesla employee at the Manhattan store said this was not a final production-run truck, but is “pretty much identical” visually to what customers will receive on Thursday. He also cited an 11,000-pound tow rating and 2,500-pound max payload, which were also listed on a sign in the store. The tow rating is a bit off Tesla’s previous claim that the Cybertruck would tow 14,000 pounds, but it’s still competitive with the Ford F-150 Lightning, Rivian R1T, and Silverado EV.

This was my first time seeing any Cybertruck in person, and I have to say, its silhouette is striking, particularly from frontal angles. Credit where credit’s due: this truck doesn’t look like anything else on sale today—or potentially ever, and it has its good sides. The Cybertruck is imposing and futuristic from the front and front three-quarter perspective, but looks bizarre and homemade viewed in profile and from the rear three-quarter. This might have something to do with the lack of side character lines. The giant single windshield wiper is slightly goofy-looking, although perhaps more elegant than the Hummer EV’s triple-wiper setup.

Tesla made some sacrifices to pull off that distinctive styling, too. Those A-pillar blind spots are massive, and that single roof crease that gives the truck its wedge shape has got to cramp rear headroom and visibility. I’m not too bullish on cameras solving the Cybertruck’s visibility woes—remember when Elon said cameras would replace LIDAR in autonomous cars and was wrong? Call me old-school, but I’d rather have the perspective of my eyes when maneuvering something this massive.

Speaking of the interior, the Cybertruck's single-piece front cocoons sure look comfortable and well-bolstered, with plenty of width to accommodate everyone from lanky tech bros to burly farmers. (Okay, maybe farmers buying Cybertrucks is a stretch.) That's all I got to see, because Tesla employees were apparently instructed not to open the truck's doors.

The truck was roped off and its supposedly motorized tonneau cover was in place, so I couldn’t drop the tailgate or inspect the truck’s bed closely. However, I did notice that its upper tailgate panel was crooked, leaving an uneven gap. Looking at these two photos, you can see a relatively normal gap between the left bed surround panel and the lighted center panel of the upper tailgate. On the right side, the gap is significantly larger and appears uneven, with the top closer than the bottom. As we’ve covered, these three panels make up the Cybertruck’s rear light array, so any alignment issues will be even more visible on the road.