Can anyone explain the Cybertruck?

Tesla CEO Elon Musk introduces the Cybertruck at Tesla's design studio Thursday, Nov. 21, 2019, in Hawthorne, Calif. Musk is taking on the workhorse heavy pickup truck market with his latest electric vehicle. (AP / Ringo H.W. Chiu)

NEW YORK CITY — There’s a mystery taking root in my neighborhood. It’s the story of a person who dropped somewhere between 80 and 100 grand (U.S.), and maybe even more than that, on a Tesla Cybertruck that is consistently parked on the street — exposed to the elements, far from a charging station, losing value by the second.

That person — I promise to ask them for comment if we ever cross paths — and thousands of others in the United States have elected to put their money into one of the most divisive consumer products ever made. And as a business reporter, I can’t help but wonder what pushes people to drop such serious money on such a novel, decidedly weird-looking car that has been plagued by performance problems from day one.

And driving something different than anything else on the road certainly says… something.

“It’s a vehicle that’s certainly meant to make a statement,” said Jonathan Elfalan, the director of vehicle testing at Edmunds. “You can almost be a pseudo-celebrity by owning one.”

Of course, Elfalan notes, it’s not one that Edmunds recommends for people looking for, like, a truck.

Since Tesla unleashed the Cybertruck late last year — fully two years behind schedule and tens of thousands more than the originally promised purchase price — owners and professional reviewers haven’t been shy about broadcasting the vehicle’s flaws. And I’m not even talking about its futuristic dumpster aesthetic, though that certainly gives critics plenty of ammunition. I’m referring to its chronic recalls and design features that make it a unique beast to encounter on the road.

Here’s a brief look at some of the Cybertruck’s problems.

In less than a year, the truck has been recalled four times — two of which required the vehicles to be brought into service centers for repairs, and two of which were simpler over-the-air software fixes.

Last week, Car and Driver magazine said the Cybertruck didn’t even rank its “EV of the Year” list because the one they reviewed bricked on its second day of testing.

Tesla markets the Cybertruck as “bulletproof,” but at least one owner found that his vehicle was rendered useless for several hours after taking it through a car wash.

And then there are the videos.

Multiple viral videos have circulated showing Tesla Cybertrucks getting bogged down in all sorts of situations – situations that maybe a more typical pickup truck would be able to get out of. But whether or not that’s the fault of the truck itself or its typical owner, Tesla’s Cybertruck lead engineer, Wes Morrill took to X to acknowledge that “real people” were experiencing issues, and said that he was considering adding a “stuck detection” mode to the vehicle’s software, which would “give drivers a pop up suggestion when stuck with ideas on how to get un-stuck.”

Unresolved safety questions

And then there are the specs: The Cybertruck is a sharp-angled, 7,000-pound stainless steel box that can go from zero to 60 mph in 2.6 seconds. Like many big electric trucks, that’s double the weight of the average car on the road, and much, much faster. (For reference: A 2015 Toyota Rav 4, like the one I drive, does zero-to-60 in about eight seconds).

And that presents a physics problem for anyone who might be unfortunate enough to be hit by a Cybertruck.

“I can’t think of another vehicle I would say that looks as lethal to like a pedestrian as a Cybertruck does — just going off of looks and actually having run my finger along that edge,” Elfalan tells me.

Tesla, which rarely returns media inquiries, didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment Wednesday. In December, CEO Elon Musk said the company was “highly confident that Cybertruck will be much safer per mile than other trucks, both for occupants and pedestrians.”

To be sure, any heavy, high-profile truck poses risks to pedestrians and cyclists, and the Cybertruck isn’t even the heaviest one on the road. The GMC Hummer EV, for instance, weighs more than 9,000 pounds. EV trucks in particular create a nightmare hazard for pedestrians and cyclists, given their weight and power.

But the Cybertruck’s sharp edges and massive blindspots (mitigated by cameras) have raised concerns among safety experts from the beginning.

Part of the reason a lot of new cars on the road these days all look sort of alike, with rounded edges and inflated hoods, is because carmakers are thinking of pedestrian safety, Elfalan says.

The Cybertruck’s design, including its stainless steel panels, seem to fly in the face of those advancements.

One driver posted to an owners forum in May, saying he sustained a gash that needed stitches after clipping the door on his leg. (“I still love the truck!” he wrote.)

Safety experts have also raised questions about the truck’s apparently small “crumple zone” — the section of a car designed to absorb the impact of a collision. In response, Tesla released a video in December of an in-house crash test, along with a statement on X saying the “Cybertruck’s front underbody casting is designed to break into small pieces” to help “reduce occupant impact.”

But right now, all we have to rely on for safety promises is Tesla.

So far, neither of the two main organizations that conduct independent safety tests in the U.S. have weighed in on the Cybertruck, and they are unlikely to do so unless sales pick up significantly.

That’s not a total surprise. As Consumer Reports recently explained, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the industry-backed Insurance Institute for Highway Safety together cover the vast majority of new cars. But they are unlikely to conduct crash tests on the Cybertruck or other niche vehicles, given their limited resources

NHTSA tests about 86 per cent of new vehicles, “a broad cross section that will help consumers make purchasing decisions about the vehicles that best fit their needs,” it said in a statement. An IIHS spokesperson said its budget for crash-tests is limited, so it targets big sellers.

“While it has certainly created a lot of buzz, it’s unlikely we would invest resources to test it unless it were selling in numbers comparable with other popular large pickups,” IIHS spokesperson Joe Young told Consumer Reports, in a statement confirmed by CNN.

The difference may be the point

Bottom line: Tesla isn’t a traditional carmaker, and its customer base is unusually loyal.

Elfalan notes the Cybertruck has some innovations — fantastic steering, roomy cabin, smooth ride — but the one Edmunds purchased suffered multiple system failures. That reflects Tesla’s move-fast-and-break-things Silicon Valley roots.

Though that might lead the electric car maker to make mistakes similar to those of traditional at-home mechanics working on their gas guzzlers.

“They’re a tech company that builds cars, and I think they’ve done a lot of innovative things, but in moving fast… I think there are oversights that can happen with things like this, like forgetting to fill a car with coolant.”

He adds: “But the customer base is so loyal that these things can happen, and you still love the vehicle that you’ve just spent [US]$100,000 on.”