Right Answers Only: Cybertrucks are real trucks

Gas and diesel-powered trucks have been around for ages. Since the first internal combustion truck was designed in 1895 by Karl Benz, the standard for this style of vehicle has been raised exponentially. Companies such as Ford, Chevy and Dodge, among others have continued to innovate on the modest platform designed by Benz to bring the truck to where it is today.

But these manufacturers have been looking at trucks all wrong. Many "conventional" truck owners would argue a powerful fossil fuel engine, high towing capacity and more storage than you'll ever need among other qualifiers are what make a truck a truck. I say none of those things are real benchmarks for a truck, and so does Elon Musk.

Since the Tesla Cybertruck was first unveiled in 2019, fans of "real" trucks have been up in arms about the legitimacy of the vehicle being labeled a truck. I'm here to put the argument to rest: Cybertrucks are real trucks, and all other trucks are the posers.

Starting with the body of the truck, Tesla has successfully removed as many polygons from the exterior of the truck as possible. A common issue with other so-called "trucks" is their inability to stop quickly if a pedestrian or other creature jumps out in front of them. The Cybertruck solves this problem with a large, flat front face and sharp edges that remove the need for you to stop for pedestrians, with the subsequent road bump barely being felt by anyone in the vehicle thanks to the adaptive air ride suspension.

Next, on to the storage capabilities of the truck.

In the front, Tesla took the space left by not having a gas-guzzling engine and turned it into the "frunk," a spacious 7.1-cubic-foot enclosure that gives you just enough space to maybe stow some of your golf clubs.

It is accompanied by a powered hatch that has accomplished a feat that no other "real" truck has accomplished: cleaving a carrot clean in half as its motorized components force the hatch shut.The allegations that this could happen to a human finger are preposterous though, because fingers move and carrots don't.

On the back end of the truck, Tesla is eliminating the need to tie down a large load of construction material through a simple fix:  minimizing the bed space. Through the combination of the angular bed cover and a $16,000 range extender battery taking up half the available bed space, the Cybertruck has removed all the unnecessary space that conventional bulky truck beds provide. That way, you can focus more on fitting two bags of groceries into the back instead of 2x4s.

Speaking of the cover, Tesla decided that other manufacturers were wrong for not confusing raccoons with the material and design of the truck bed cover. To rectify this, the design was made to look as close to a dumpster lid as possible so that raccoons would take notice — giving it their all to break into the bed of the Cybertruck.

Despite trying to challenge the standard Ford has set for trucks, Elon Musk has clearly studied Ford's methodology when it comes to vanity. The Model T can be any color as long as it's black, and the Cybertruck can be any color you want as long as it's stainless steel. While some people will get an aftermarket wrap or paint on their Cybertruck in defiance of Tesla's artistic vision, I prefer mine to look sharp and cool — like the polygon on wheels that it is.

Another step Tesla is taking to modernize the truck platform is making the Cybertruck more computer-reliant than any truck that has come before. Are the safety icons on your dashboard unreadable? Is the rearview camera lagging and not providing you necessary real-time imagery of what's behind you? Fear not, there's an update rolling out to fix that!

This major shift in design philosophy removes a major cost for Tesla in the way of quality control, as they can now put the impetus on owners to find any issues with the vehicle that are able to be fixed by an update. This is part of Tesla's effort to move away from physical maintenance on the Cybertruck, eventually shifting to a fully update-based system.

One thing you want any vehicle to do is accelerate. While you also typically want your vehicle to stop, Tesla decided to focus on one thing at a time and went all in on acceleration. Aiming to make the driving experience as feet-off as possible, the accelerator was able to get stuck after regular use, removing the need for the driver to depress it ever again. Sadly, this brilliant innovation was axed in a mandatory recall in April 2024.

For the frame of the truck, Tesla is throwing out convention. Instead of a steel frame, Tesla has made the Cybertruck's frame from aluminum. That way, instead of bending and holding when strain is put on the hitch or the frame, the point of strain will simply snap, allowing whatever was attached to your hitch to become someone else's problem. This revolutionary snapping apparatus also serves to eliminate the pesky process of having to unhitch loads after hauling them.

To cap it all off, Tesla wanted to ensure owners had options when it came to how the vehicle worked in different settings, so the Cybertruck has modes.

A few examples include:

Car wash mode, because why would you want to be able to drive your car into a car wash and have it work when you drive it out, when you could forget to hit a button and then chill in a car wash for at least five hours?

Jack mode, so that the adaptive air suspension won't continually attempt to level out and crush whoever is trying to work on the car.

Overland mode, due to Tesla's need to appeal to people who do serious truck things with their serious trucks out in the desert. Despite this necessary inclusion to appeal to those nerds, hopefully the Cybertruck moves the future of trucks away from the outdoors and onto I-95.

The Cybertruck is the future of trucks as we know them. Tesla has changed the game with their new takes on storage space, modes and other features that have long been hallmarks of the truck platform.

People are loving everything about the Cybertruck, and other companies need to catch up before they get left in the dust.