Yahoo Autos Watch This Cybertruck Get a Steering Fault After 1 Mile
The Tesla Cybertruck has been a lightning rod in the automotive community long before the production models started landing in customer hands. Now that Elon’s pet project has started to populate roadways across the country, we're starting to see videos from owners pop up online. Take this video from Thomas Remo of Gear Down on YouTube, which shows his truck’s steering system suffering from a major fault within the first mile of his ownership.
Remo is a pilot and a mechanic. His YouTube channel generally revolves around the private plane industry, and his life as a private pilot to some well-known A-listers. Remo recently purchased a brand-new Tesla Cybertruck in Cyberbeast trim, and documented his experience on collection day for his fans. The journey begins at Tesla in Irvine, California, where Remo and crew were slated to begin the delivery process. After a brief paperwork shuffle, Remo is ready to leave the car store and make his way onto the open road. In the clip we watch as Remo pulls out into traffic with the Cybertruck, exercising a healthy amount of the instant power on offer in the process. The truck does not seem to react well, as it immediately throws up warning screens across the touchscreen and sounds an alarm. While the driver nonchalantly notes that they already broke the rather expensive EV, the reality of the situation is a bit less of a laughing matter. The warning lights indicate that there is an issue with the truck’s steer-by-wire system, which ultimately tossed the truck into a limp mode restricted to just 4 mph. Remo was able to pull off of the road without incident, but that’s not exactly the sort of first drive that the average buyer wants to take.
A brief cut in the video lands us back in the front seat of the Cybertruck, which Tesla was apparently able to get sorted fairly quickly. Remo then continues to show off the truck to some passersby, who are clearly taken with its rather unique styling. That said, later in the video we see the truck throw out the same failure warning during another hard launch. After this incident Remo can be seen making a few taps on the center screen, which seem to clear away the warning message entirely after cycling power. It’s not clear whether or not this was a strategy shared by the folks at Tesla, or if it's something that Remo figured out on his own. That said, another liberal use of the throttle immediately after this causes the warning message and audio to return once again. Clearly frustrated, Remo goes as far as to suggest his build is a lemon. Remo shows the camera that truck had just around 40 miles on the odometer at the time.
While teething issues are to be expected whenever a new car goes on sale, folks have been fairly vocal about their concerns surrounding Tesla’s new steer-by-wire system. The technology itself isn’t new to the car world, with Infiniti rolling out its Direct Adaptive Steering over a decade ago. That said, the Infinity system retained a traditional mechanical steering connection between you the driver and the wheels themselves -- there is always a physical steering shaft present -- to served as an emergency redundancy should the electric system fail. Tesla hasn’t followed suit with its new system, instead opting for redundant motors in the system. Should one motor in the front fail, the other is strong enough to steer the truck to safety. Tesla's system also employs a variable rack, which changes inputs based on vehicle speed. It is worth noting that many owners have shared positive experiences with this system so far, despite the learning curve involved with having only a single lock at your disposal.
That said, it’s not the type of system you want to see having issues, even if it is an isolated case. That’s particularly true in a vehicle with 845 hp, and that can do 0-60 mph in just 2.6 seconds and weighs more than three tons.
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