NEWS I OPINION I GOSSIP
muster. All the renderings by
the automotive chattering
classes? So, so wrong.
A month later we had a
chance to go back and check
in on Tesla’s progress on the
Cybertruck. The life-size clay
model we’d seen before had—
quite shockingly—been joined
by a half-finished Cybertruck
running prototype. With Black
Sabbath and Tool blaring
from an unseen stereo, the
workshop was frenzied with
activity. It was midafternoon
Friday; Elon wanted Tesla’s EV
pickup assembled and driving
through the SpaceX factory by
Sunday. The reveal was two
weeks away.
What would be running
was turning out to be quite
interesting: a motor at each
axle, Tesla’s new Raven perma-
nent-magnet drive units, to
be precise. Up front a Model 3
Performance’s rear motorcan be found; in back, a
well-protected Model S
Performance’s rear motor.
Tesla doesn’t publish horse-
power figures anymore, but
we estimate up to 690 hp and
824 lb-ft of torque combined
from the twin motors in the
Raven powertrain. The future
three-motor Plaid powertrain
will certainly find its way into
the Cybertruck, and it could
put out an estimated 800 hp
and 1,000 lb-ft of torque. Like
all Teslas, the Cybertruck’s
motors are backed by a
one-speed automatic. Feedingthe motors is Tesla’s latest
battery tech, of which the
company has shared little.
The standard battery pack
is mounted underneath the
cab, just forward of the roll-up
tonneau cover’s storage
compartment ( beneath the
pickup bed floor), and offers
up about 300 miles of claimed
range. A new, double-stacked
battery will give the Cybertruck
up to 500 miles of range, Tesla
says. Construction of the proto-
type is “unibody-on-frame”
in the same vein as the new
Land Rover Defender, but the
production Cybertruck will be
pure unibody.
Although most off-roaders
and pickup owners would
sneer at an air suspension,
Tesla opted for a signifi-
cantly beefed-up version of
the Model X’s air setup with
upper and lower A-arms at all
four corners. Air suspensions
typically offer lots of ground
clearance but little mean-
ingful travel, but based on
nothing more than watching
the Cybertruck get loweredElon says the “bulletproof”
windshield was inspired
by lessons the carmaker
learned on the Tes l a Semi.14 MOTORTREND.COM FEBRUARY 2020