Cybertruck Faces Damage, Recall

Drivers are reporting that Tesla’s Cybertruck is breaking down in some strange ways - the aerodynamic wheel covers are causing some damage and premature wearing to the tires, a team of off-roading enthusiasts literally drive the wheels off of their Cybertruck, and a font issue for the ABS warning indicators has caused a recall notice.

Let’s start with those tire issues.

On January 31st, a user in the Cybertruck Owners Club forums posted about an issue with his newly delivered Cybertruck. The company hadn’t included the unique, seven pointed wheel covers that are an iconic part of the stainless steel truck’s look.

The new owner was contacted by Tesla shortly afterwards, explaining that the covers wouldn’t be delivered as promised due to an issue that they will be investigating - and instead would be delivered in March.

And that’s frustrating for a new buyer for sure - not only are those wheel caps a fairly recognizable part of the Cybertruck’s look - but they actually have a purpose. Wheel covers smooth out the aerodynamics of a vehicle by forcing the turbulence created by the wheels themselves to flow more evenly around the car.

This can result in real benefits for the range of an electric car - with numbers from the Model 3’s aerodynamic covers showing something in the neighborhood of a 5 -10% range increase.

So if Tesla is making an internal review of the wheel covers for their brand new Cybertruck - something has to be dangerous. And since they seem to have fixed the problem where the caps would sometimes pop off while driving back in the design phase, it has to be something more drastic.

Well it didn’t take long for Tesla fans to figure out what was going on, because on February 1st, the YouTube channel T Sportline - which is run by a 3rd party Tesla accessory company - put out this video analysing the likely reason for Cybertruck aero-covers being held back by the company.

Remember those seven points, or “fingers” that make up the design of the wheel caps? Well, it turns out that even with the slight gap between the caps and the tire’s sidewall, whenever the wheel contacts ground, it swells just enough to rub up against the cap at those points - causing enough friction to wear the tire unevenly at those points.

The points are actually made up of rubber, rather than the plastic that makes up the rest of the cap - so it’s clear that Tesla had encountered this problem in the development process and had made this change in order to alleviate what was likely a far more aggressive wear pattern - however the video shows a tire that’s only been through a few thousand miles of use and it looks pretty bad already.

So that’s a good reason for Tesla to step in and pull these covers before the issue gets any worse - and the company is definitely going to come up with some sort of redesign ASAP, but however long it will actually take is anyone’s guess. It’s doubtful that newly redesigned caps will be sent out by March, but if the fix is simple, it’s a possibility.

The same can’t be said for another type of wheel-related issue that became apparent on February 3rd, when the Unplugged Performance team took their Cybertruck on the King of Hammers race - and literally drove it into the ground.

During the offroading race - which is held in Johnson Valley, California - the team’s truck managed to shear the rear passenger-side steering bolt - causing the vehicle to need some repairs.

Now, normally having the wheel nearly fall off in the course for driving is cause for some alarm - but there are a few mitigating factors in this case.

First, like many off-road races, the King of Hammers circuit reportedly results in this sort of damage to vehicles quite often, and the bolt itself is a fairly easy fix according to the Unplugged Performance team - who regularly modify their Teslas.

Which brings us to the second point - this Cybertruck had been upgraded with aftermarket wheels, tires, fender flares, and sway bar links on the front and rear of the vehicle. That’s not to say any of these contributed to the damage - but we can’t rule it out.

The last point is actually the biggest: Unplugged Performance were TRYING to run their Cybertruck ragged here.

During conversations about the performance, the Unplugged team mentioned that before the steering bolt broke, they had been “hardcore driving” their truck for the last two days on various courses - and had been taking it on various off-road tracks for a solid week before that. The team really wanted to see where the Cybertruck’s limits were, and they seem to have found them.

But Unplugged CEO Ben Schaffer had nothing but good things to say about the experience, reporting to news outlet Teslarati that:

“This truck is so capable at doing so many things exceptionally well,I don’t know many vehicles that can turn a 2:15 at Buttonwillow in Baja mode, then daily drive the kids to school, then go to King of Hammers all with the same hardware and state of tune. All in the same week.”

And he’s right. A wheel basically falling off the Cybertruck while offroading can sound really bad, but this story had more to it - and showed that Tesla’s new truck is actually fairly robust when handled by a team that’s experienced in off-roading.

And finally, an actual recall from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will reportedly affect not just the Cybertruck - but also Models S, X, 3, and Y vehicles. The problem? The font size for the Brake, Park, and Antilock Brake System visual warning indicators are a little too small, and will have to be patched to bring them up to at least 3.2 mm in size as per regulations.

That’s right, a full recall notice for a problem that will be fixed with an over-the-air update that amounts to the same thing as when your mobile devices get new patches.

It’s pretty silly to use such heavy language for something so inconsequential to fix - and in fact CEO Elon Musk has called for an update to NHTSA terminology for this sort of situation in the past, as critics can make a very big deal about “recalls” in general, and often lump this sort of fix into those stats, regardless of there being very little danger involved.

Musk says that the terminology is “outdated and inaccurate” which is hard to argue with.

For the NHTSA though, any time they have to force a company to make changes to their vehicles in this way, they are required to call it a “recall”, so this isn’t them being malicious, it’s just awkward that they have to keep doing this for such an easy thing.

The current font size “could reduce the driver’s detection of it when illuminated, increasing the risk of a collision.” according to the NHTSA’s brief, which is fair enough - and the issue will reportedly be addressed during the next software updates for all the affected vehicles.

All told, these are pretty small bumps for the Cybertruck to weather inside its first two months of release - and fixes will likely be pretty quick to get implemented where they need to be.