We’re exactly two weeks away from Tesla’s Cybertruck delivery event — and still officially none the wiser about how much it’ll cost or its actual specs.
But a new leaked video, which appears to show the interior of Tesla’s long-awaited electric pickup, included a detailed breakdown of the unusual vehicle’s user interface, which just might shed some light on the situation.
Assuming the video is legit — it’d be a very impressive fake if not — keen-eyed onlookers are attempting to calculate the vehicle’s range based on what they saw, with predictions ranging from a disastrous 267 miles all the way up to 500 miles, putting it in line with Tesla’s initial promises when the truck was first unveiled four years ago.
To be clear, these are just rough estimations based on limited data and a brand-new battery pack.
In other words, there’s far more confusion than actual answers right now, and we’ll have to wait and see if Tesla will be able to meet its fans’ sky-high expectations later this month.
Still, the video led to a frenzy of back-of-the-envelope calculations among eager fans.
“With a battery at 71 percent [state of charge] with 55 minutes to achieve a full charge at a current rate at 71 KWh (written vertically on the left edge of the display), this means that the battery is 245 kilowatts,” one user suggested.
“There’s no way this Cybertruck has just 250 miles of range — 500 miles seems more likely!” he added.
And TorqueNews extrapolated the range to be “anywhere between 400 and 440 miles.”
To be clear, we don’t know what variant of the Cybertruck we’re even looking at. The range will also heavily depend on the size of the battery and the exact configuration of the truck’s drivetrain, as well as whether users are using the power-hungry heating or air conditioning systems.
Then there are expected losses in efficiency and room for error in the Cybertruck’s own range estimations.
“My expectation is that the EPA [estimated range] is going to be 350 miles, or thereabout,” one redditor suggested. “A Tesla gets about 80 percent of the [EPA] rated range, 80 percent of 350 is 280.”
Besides the question of range, the clip also shows a surprisingly cramped backseat, which came to the disappointment of fans on the Cybertruck subreddit.
“The entire cab seems small,” another user added.
As for price, the clip suggests the truck will start at just $50,000. In late 2019, Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised a single-motor variant of the truck would start at just $39,999. But just over four years later, the latest estimates pin the top-end, tri-motor variant at well over $100,000.
At a $50,000 starting price, Tesla’s truck would be roughly in line with Ford’s competing F-150 Lightning EV, albeit a limited-range entry-level variant. The Rivian R1T, another electric pickup, starts at a loftier $73,000.
In short, Tesla has a lot to prove. While there’s clearly still plenty of enthusiasm for the Cybertruck, there’s plenty of apprehension in the mix as well.
And that doesn’t bode well as Tesla is already preparing to take a major financial hit by building and selling the truck.
More on the truck: The Designer of the DeLorean Has Some Thoughts About the Cybertruck
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