3 things I HATE about my Cybertruck after 13,000 miles

Our Cybertruck has successfully driven 13,000 miles with surprisingly very few issues, and as our first 8 months come to a close, I have a few thoughts that might be useful to people who are considering using the Cybertruck as a work truck. There are three things I absolutely love about this truck, and three things that I absolutely hate. One, it's bulletproof to 9mm handgun, which is pretty baller. Two, it also catches an insane amount of eyeballs, which as a company truck is a double edged sword that I'll get to more in a second. And three, the steer-by-wire is legitimately incredible. Combined with the rear wheel steering makes the truck super fun and unique to drive, and I really do think this will be more common in vehicles in the future. The ownership experience though over the last 8 months has not been all sunshine and roses. I have driven three different Cybertrucks, the green one which I borrowed, the gold one which I plated in real 24 karat gold and then gave back to Ridge Wallet, and this one, the blue one which I own. And two of the three had a screw in the door that would work itself out over time. I can fix this on my own obviously. Tesla doesn't need a recall for this one screw, but there have been 5 recalls for other things. The most recent recall is the backup camera that just goes black and fails to boot up when moving in reverse. This is a federal requirement passed back in 2018. Tesla just released an easy over the air software update as a fix for that one. There are some pieces of trim that would fall off while driving, and this one needs a visit to the service center so they could re-glue some of the strips of metal back down. This is a bigger deal since parts should not be falling off of the truck while driving, and it does show that the stainless steel is not a complete exoskeleton like Tesla claimed back at the original launch event. And as another side note, everyone I talked to seemed shocked that the glass on the Cybertruck is not bulletproof, which is just another residual claim from that original launch event that Tesla never clarified or corrected. The truck that shipped was very different than the truck that was announced. There were some on-screen icons with small text that was the third recall, another over the air update. The fourth recall was a bit more dangerous, and it was the accelerator pedal falling off and getting stuck in the full open throttle position. Kind of a big deal, and probably something Tesla should have caught before release. Under pressure, the foot pad can slide up and pin the accelerator at 100%. The brake pedal overrides the throttle pedal, so you can still stop the vehicle even with the throttle pinned, but still. Kind of sketchy. One simple rivet from Tesla helps hold the throttle pedal in place. I probably would have put two, but that's just me. And finally, the windshield wiper motor for the astronomically sized windshield wiper was receiving too much current and might fail in the future. The motor does need to be swapped out, but they don't have replacements for that just yet, and we'll get ours in the future. Personally, I think the larger recalls are still to come. It was at this point in the video where I segued into a rather glorious sponsorship integration, and when I finished the edit and sent the video off to the brand as a preview, they responded back, and I quote, we would rather not be featured alongside Cybertruck content at this time, which is 100% understandable and actually speaks volume to the polarization of the Cybertruck when a well-respected brand that you've all heard of decides not to be featured alongside a Cybertruck because it would hurt their brand more than help them. And I don't blame them in the slightest. Let's get back to the video. The first big personal issue I've had with the Cybertruck is the headlights. If you take a look at all the electric trucks that are out right now – the Rivian, the Lightning, and the Cybertruck – they all look very different on the front. All three have light bars on the front, but those are just for passive decoration and don't actually illuminate anything. The Cybertruck headlights are down here and sit 24 inches from the ground, where both the Lightning and the Rivian's headlights sit much higher. The higher you are off the ground, the better you're able to see at night, which is why a lighthouse is placed on top of a hill and not a college down on the beach. In all practicality, when the trucks are placed side by side from a bird's eye view at night, the headlights all cover about the same amount of ground except for when it's snowing. For the Rivian and Cybertruck, when snow hits their headlights, they kind of just bounce off or melt away. But the Cybertruck has this nifty little shelf right by the headlight where snow can accumulate and make winter driving rather difficult. I'm here in Utah where snow is a fairly common thing, and not only does snow accumulate on the light, but the light bar itself, which cannot be turned off, shines directly up into the snowflakes as they fall, creating that Star Wars warp speed effect, almost as if I was driving with my brights on even though I'm not. Rivian's already aware of this problem years ago and put a piece of black stripping above their light bar so that the light would not reflect into the snow as people are driving in bad weather. The Cybertruck's poor visibility in weather is my first complaint, but what about other truck stuff, like towing? We tow with our trucks quite a lot, moving material, moving machines, and just moving in general. I just assumed and trusted the 11,000 pound towing capacity that Tesla gave us, but I should have known from when Elon put the infinity sign next to towing at the launch event that Tesla was not taking towing seriously. Whistle and Diesel showed us that the steel bumper tube is literally just bolted onto a cast aluminum frame inside the truck, and cast aluminum strength-wise is far inferior to steel. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and an aluminum link in a steel chain would be where it fails first. I trust steel to tow my trailers, but not aluminum, especially cast aluminum. And it wasn't just Whistle and Diesel's hitch that completely snapped off. Tesla has sold about 30,000 of these trucks so far, and from what I've seen online, there are about 3 that have had the hitch completely fall off. It's hard to know exactly how many have had this problem since I'm sure this is something Tesla would rather keep quiet, but aluminum has no fatigue limit and will fail over time, where steel in the same place would not. One of the reasons why the Cybertruck is not allowed in Europe is because the USA, and I didn't know this before, has a self-certification safety system, which the NSTSA lets companies declare themselves whether their vehicles are safe or not without any direct approval from the agency itself. Which seems kind of lax in my opinion, and Europe has much stricter safety standards, which is why the Cybertruck is not allowed on their road. The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety has also not given the Cybertruck a safety warning, so basically we're all just trusting an internal thumbs up from Tesla themselves that the truck is safe. Either way, as a work truck, we have stopped towing things with our Cybertruck just because the risk is too high. We still have the Rivian and the Lightning, which have a far lower potential for spontaneous disassembly. And it is a bummer that we can't use the Cybertruck as a truck. Finally, the last factor in my review of the Cybertruck as a work truck is its ability to be a mobile billboard. It gets a lot of eyeballs both on the street and online, but when the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, makes controversial tweets like wanting to impregnate Taylor Swift or asking why no one has assassinated Kamala Harris, it very much reflects on my business. Which, if this was a personal vehicle and I supported that kind of discussion, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. But since I run a wheelchair manufacturing business and I'm trying to bring in the largest audience possible, as any business should, buying such a polarizing vehicle is just a factor that needs to be considered. Those kind of statements are not normal and at the moment, with my business slapped on the side, it looks as if I support those kinds of takes, which I most definitely do not. So what do I do? Do I sell it? The honeymoon period has kind of worn off and I was never super emotionally attached to the Cybertruck in the first place. There is a new 2025 electric Silverado with 492 miles of range and the ability to tow 12,000 pounds coming out next year, which is very tempting or I could just get another Rivian. Let me know what you think down in the comments and thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.