Video: 2025 Tesla Cybertruck Review: What’s It Like To Live With?

It's stainless steel body panels and beyond radical shape make it impossible to ignore, but what's it like to live with? I spent the better part of a week driving a Cybertruck around my suburban Chicago home as my daily family hauler. And here's what I found out. Let's get into it. (upbeat music) So let's start just by getting into the Cybertruck in the first place. We have no door handles, not even the push pull handles of other Teslas. Instead, we've got these push buttons located at the base of the roof pillars with a nice little illuminated rectangle, so they're easy to see in the dark. When you have the key card or program phone in your pocket, you just press the button, electrically pops the door open, you can grab it and pull it the rest of the way. These stainless steel panels seem to be a magnet for thumbprints and water spots, just kind of the nature of stainless steel and one of the defining characteristics of this vehicle. Of course, there are also electric door release buttons on the inside of the door panels. To pop the doors open from the inside, but at least on the driver's side, the button was far enough forward that I inadvertently used the manual backup latch release instead. And that is a no-no because when you use the electric button, the window lowers so as not to mess with the weather stripping. And when you use the manual latch, a backup, so if there's a power loss, you can still get out of the vehicle, that window lowering doesn't happen. The Cybertruck has a very wacky angled roof line, but front seat space is quite good in no small part because the roof peaks over the front seat occupants heads. So even 6'6" me has adequate headroom in the front seat. So because of that radical sloping roof line, I was worried that I would not have enough room in the Cybertruck's backseat. But as you can see, it's not too bad, I fit okay, and this is with the driver's seat set for me, meaning all the way back, all the way down. Not a ton of leg room, but enough. And if I'm being honest, my head is slightly brushing the glass roof here, but again, I'm 6'6". I think average size adults, especially behind a shorter front seat passenger, they're gonna be fine. There's also a nice touch pad tablet here for backseat passengers, climate controls, fan speed, heated seats, and even some video games to play with. And in no small part because temperatures were regularly hitting the mid nineties when I had the vehicle, I'm not a fan of the Cybertruck's fixed glass roof. It's very large. The windshield's very large too, but the entirety of the back seat and heading over into a little bit of the front seat area as well, it's glass roof. It's tinted so it keeps out a little bit of light, but little bit of light brings a little bit of heat. It's just that much more hot in the vehicle in the summer. Tesla does sell $115 sunshade, but our test vehicle didn't have it. And like a lot of EVs, these Cybertruck has a frunk and I can open it from smartphone app. Because the Cybertruck has such a short overhang. There's not a ton of space here. The frunk is pretty shallow. But as you can see, good spot for some smaller items, although I would be extra careful about brushing up against some of these sharp body edges. So the Cybertruck's minimalist dashboard layout will be familiar to those who have driven other Teslas, but like some other of the latest Teslas, this layout is extra minimalist. The main thing is there are no steering column stocks. To select a gear with the vehicle, you use the touch screen, swipe up to engage drive, swipe down to engage reverse and tap the screen to engage park. Also no turn signal stock. The turn signal controls are now buttons on the left hand side of the steering wheel. There's a nice little raised rib to help your thumb feel which button you're pressing without looking. Honestly, both the turn signal buttons and the touchscreen gear selector controls, I never fully acclimated to them in the week or so I had the vehicle. So, I didn't do any serious hauling during my time with the Cybertruck. I did throw my bicycle in the back just to see how it would fit and it fit okay. Wasn't a lot of space around it. I think the typical full-size pickup is gonna have a more spacious bed than the Cybertruck. That said, there are some nice features. There is a power tailgate release button here. Similar to the Honda Ridgeline, the Cybertruck has a built in trunk in the bed floor, so it can make a little cooler out of that or just extra hidden storage space. One thing I don't like is the shape of the body makes it hard to reach into this bed from the side and grab anything that might be at the front of the bed. Even 6'6" me can't really reach easily into the bed standing in this position. There's also a power tunnel cover that covers the entire bed, but it deploys from the base of the rear window. So when you deploy it, it completely blocks the rear window. Now there is a rear view camera display that comes up on the center screen to compensate, but it is far from ideal. And then there's the steering wheel itself. Instead of a traditional circular steering wheel, the Cybertruck has this squared off yolk-like shaped steering wheel, as well as a steer-by-wire system that eliminates the normal hand over hand steering motions you would do, especially in a big truck like this. With the steer-by-wire system, you can turn the steering wheel full lock to lock that's locked to the left, locked to the right without taking your hands off the wheel. The Cybertruck's rear wheel steering gives it a laudably tight turning radius for a large pickup truck. After I initially clipped the curb or two with the inboard rear tire because I turned too sharply, I mostly acclimated to the quick ratio steering in both around town and highway driving. It helped the cyber truck feel about as nimble as a big heavy pickup can get. But I found both the steering wheel and the steering ratio to be tedious and tricky to use in parking lots and low speed maneuvers in close quarters. I also miss having a true 360 degree camera display in those situations. The digital camera representation screen just doesn't compare. I found it disorienting. The Cybertruck's gigantic windshield provides an excellent view forward, but because of the extreme angle, the windshield pillars can block some small things to the left front of the vehicle, but it's not too bad and the triangular side windows help a lot there too. I was a little worried that this extreme angle would mean there would be sun glare issues, but outside of a little bit of reflections in the windshield, when I was driving into the sun late in the day, I didn't experience anything bothersome. This single windshield wiper is one of the biggest I've ever seen. It works quite well. It kind of swipes down with a pretty aggressive swipe, but if you need a replacement, it's $75 on Tesla's website. Rear visibility is really bad though. The viewable area of the rear window is barely seven inches tall by my tape measure and it looks male slot small when viewed through the tiny, tiny rear view mirror. And like I said before, with the retractable tunnel cover deployed, that rear window is completely blocked and the rear view camera display that comes up on the touch screen is a poor substitute. The cyber truck is incredibly quick and it handles pretty well for a big heavy truck once you get used to that unusual steering ratio. The ride is decent for a big pickup truck, you definitely feel jolts over sharp pot holes and bumps, wavy pavement. But those don't filter through to upset the steering at all. It feels pretty planted and stable. I didn't take the cyber truck off-roading at all, but on the pavement it feels planted and composed. For now at least the Cybertruck's primary draw is simply the sheer spectacle of it. When I had it, my family, friends, neighbors, the kids at my son's summer day camp, everybody had to check it out. Even if a good number of them went away shaking their heads. If you want to learn more about the Cybertruck, including my full review, be sure to check out cars.com/news. (upbeat music)