Despite its launch showing it is dominating vehicles like the Porsche 911 and the Ford F-350, the Tesla Cybertruck has just been outclassed on a trail by a Subaru Crosstrek. This isn’t the first time that the irregularly shaped EV has failed to deliver on its purported capabilities, but it is one of the first times that the Cybertruck has been overshadowed by a vehicle that costs around half its price.
In a recent YouTube video posted by VoyageATX, the stainless steel monstrosity struggled with inclines, terrain features, and even basic offroad functionality. Despite having the option to lock the rear differential in its menu, Tesla has yet to enable this feature. When the YouTuber attempted to lock his Cybertruck’s diff, he was instead met with an error message and a promise he would be able to perform the action at some point in the future. The same restrictions applied to front diff locking when that was attempted.
Another nagging fault with the Cybertruck is more of a quality of life issue, but an extreme one at that. Every time the driver left the vehicle, the offroad mode would be disengaged. Said driver would then have to go through the menus and re-enable it before setting off again. As with the differential problems, a lot of these issues will likely be fixed with a software update. But given the marketing for the Cybertruck saw it doubling as a boat and blasting across rivers — its inability to handle a trail is likely a slap in the face to the customers who spent years sitting on a pre-order.
The Subaru, which again starts at just over $30,000, ate every challenge thrown at it without any problems. Its performance was so good that it received compliments from the video host and the Tesla Cybertruck owner himself.
This isn’t the only time a Cybertruck has struggled
A good portion of the United States spends a few months of the year blanketed in snow. This is an issue for the Cybertruck as it seems utterly incapable of functioning in winter conditions. If you look past the problems current-gen EVs generally have when the mercury drops, such as decreased range, Tesla’s Cybertruck still has major issues.
Over the past few months, social media has been awash with images of Cybertrucks stranded in snowbanks with no hope of rescue. Other areas where the Cybertruck has failed to live up to the hype include range, with no 500-mile version currently available, price, and payload. The original Cybertruck was supposed to be cheap, as in closer to a Subaru Crosstrek than a fully specced-out Dodge RAM. That price steadily climbed while the payload dwindled to 2,500 pounds from the originally quoted 3,500 pounds. The towing capacity also dropped by around 3,000 pounds between the truck’s announcement and launch.
To make matters worse, the base rear-wheel-drive edition isn’t being delivered until 2025. So, all of the issues we’re seeing are happening with the most expensive and theoretically best versions of the Cybertruck. So it seems we have a lot more Cyber-misery to come.
