This Release Candidate Tesla Cybertruck Appears Covered In Fingerprints

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There’s been a number of pictures of pre-production Tesla Cybertrucks spotted testing out in the wild, and the reactions have varied as wildly as you’d expect, with some eye-rollingly reverential and somewhere you can almost hear the near-vomiting of the commenter. It’s polarizing, and, honestly, I think that’s a good thing. The automotive landscape can use more of that sort of thing. As far as whether or not I’m on the it’s great or it’s hideous ends of the pole, well, I’m going to reserve full judgment until I see one in person, but so far I don’t think I’m going to be hacking out my middle kidney to make a down payment on one just yet. One exciting development, though, is that for the first time an actual, genuine Autopian Reader has spotted one in the wild, and sent us that picture up there! So let’s celebrate that.

The particular Cybertruck spotted is one that wears no camouflage or a wrap-costume of another truck, but instead bears decals that read “RC” which stands for “release candidate,” terminology that comes from the software development world and used to refer to a software build that is being tested for actual commercial release. So, based on this, I suppose we can assume this one is a late pre-production model, and what we’re seeing should be close to the actual, final product?

The reader, by the way, was named Alex, and gave us a bit of background what he was driving when he caught this San Jose-area Cybertruck spotting:

“It’s a ’94 2 door 5 speed that I have done so much work on that multiple people (the most recent one being last week) have called the ‘Jeep of Theseus. My goal has been to keep it looking as stock as possible while functioning as well as possible, and to accomplish that I have replaced a list of parts far longer than my arm. It has served me incredibly well for the last 6 years and is still going strong at 245000 miles and easily transports me, my wife, and our 110 lb poodle/mastiff/great pyrenees mix from CA to WA every winter to go skiing with my family.”

“I have recently been prepping it for a 2000 mile round trip from San Jose CA up to Spokane WA and back so I can pick up a VW Beetle frame and other parts needed to build my (electric) Meyers Manx SR dune buggy (one of the original 200ish kits that I bought from the widow of the original owner). We were out on a final test run of the steering box I just swapped in when I saw a giant steel polygon going down the road and asked my wife to get her phone out to take a picture of it.”

One thing Alex should be happy about is that they didn’t have an experience like these other Cybertruck-spotters who had a near-miss with a Cyberhubcap that was flung ninja-star-style off the truck:

One particularly noticeable thing about Alex’ shot of the Cybertruck that I suspect will become an issue for future owners is something anyone with human hands and a stainless steel refrigerator can tell you all about:

Fingerprints

Fingerprints! Stainless steel loves to show fingerprints! It’s possible these post-DeLorean stainless steeds are going to be absolutely Georges Seurat-ed with fingerprints. Based on my own stereotypes of the fussy sort of clean-handed core buyers of these things, I bet this will be a source of lots of owner irritation.

Also, the scale and shape and sharpness of the thing still leave me feeling like this thing will not be exactly ideal for, you know, truck shit. Can you imagine loading anything over that side? Or passing something heavy into the bed while leaning on one of those razor-edged sides? It doesn’t feel like any real truck-hauling-shit use has been thought through. Other recent pictures of the inside of the Cybertruck’s bed seem to bear this out, too:

Okay, sure, nice ambient lighting, but that bed’s inward-sloping sides make that bed deceptively small. The prototype’s bed was quite different, much larger seeming. This isn’t so great, and it’s not just me being a jerkhole and saying this.

One thing I do like, though, is the way that the Cybertruck is handling its brake lights:

What I like about this brake lamp approach is that there is a clear shift both in lamp brightness, as is traditional, but also in the visual graphic of the lamps themselves, switching from one long unbroken bar into three bright elements, and I think that does a lot to capture the driver’s attention. It’s also interesting how pretty much all of the main taillights are at the high level of the center-high-mount stop lamp (CHMSL), so they’re all on the same linear plane. It seems to work well.

There! I said something nice!

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Mercedes Streeter

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165 thoughts on “This Release Candidate Tesla Cybertruck Appears Covered In Fingerprints”

  4. Just park outside your nearest McDonalds, and offer the crew $100 to come and shine it for you. Those guys are THE stainless steel experts. I know this because I could never get it right when I worked there, and wasn’t allowed to do it.

  6. This thing still looks like a joke someone came up with, but then their ego wouldn’t allow them to let go of the idea. I do like the tail lights though. They’re different without being obnoxious about it.

  7. It also appears that the graining may be oriented differently between panels. From a distance the graining in the sheet can make it look like a slightly different color based on the way it is orientated and how it reflects light. Or the panel is just dirty (also likely because stainless is a PITA to keep clean)

    Also, stainless can vary in color from roll to roll or even within a roll sometimes. Will be interesting to see how they deal with that.

    But, so far looks true to the original example, interesting like a doorstop.

    1. The stainless grain appearing to not be in the same orientation panel-to-panel caught my eye more than the expected finger prints. It may just be dirty, or the varied reflection of the storm clouds playing games, but either way the concerns you noted about stainless have been on my mind since this truck was announced.

      Having seen first-hand the challenges with repairing Deloreans can be, I expect these will take the challenges to repairing unibody BEVs to a whole new level – both in complexity and cost.

      1. Thanks but no thanks. It worked like a charm with no side effects.

        Fingerprints and water marks are two of the most common complaints that we have with stainless steel, and both of them can be easily taken care of with ammonia based cleaning solution. First of all, it is important to wash and clean your stainless steel utensils regularly. If you let the marks become permanent, it will be harder to remove them afterwards. Now if you have some marks on your stainless steel surfaces, then make an ammonia cleaning solution at home. Mix 7 cups water in 1 cup of household ammonia, dip a piece of cloth in this solution and rub the surface with this cloth. If the stains are too hard to go, you can soak your utensil in this solution for an hour and then rub off. The dirt will loosen by soaking and will come off easily.

          1. He’s wrong. I always use baking soda and a random orbit sander with 80 grit diamond sandpaper to clean my Cyberturd. It works great on the glass too.

        1. Wow! What could go wrong with that plan. Your neighbor, smoking a cigarette, drops by to say how great your car looks and… get the fire extinguisher!

  9. Oh, yikes on the taillight arrangement. How is that setup useful when the tailgate is down?

    I just can’t even with this monstrosity. It’s going to be pretty useless as an actual truck.

  10. The CT is definitely polarizing, but what I can’t get over is how Musk seemed to be extremely level headed about the 3 and the Y learning from the X’s mistakes and then this thing happened. That is, he insisted that the 3 and Y be easy to manufacture and simple(-ish) to own, and we can all see how that went! Why he felt the need to renege on that philosophy and create such an utter contraption would be beyond me, if I didn’t know the pattern of success-fueled hubris all too well. At least it’ll be quite a sight in traffic…

    2. I suspect there is much more of Mr. Musk’s own ideas invested in this than Tesla’s other vehicles, hence the stubborn push to make it a reality. Sad thing is, this is (maybe) the first vehicle that will need a model refresh just as the original generation begins to roll out for delivery.

  11. Most people that have trucks don’t really use them for truck-y things.

    Those that do… honestly, I’m rarely, if ever, reaching over the side of the truck. When I’m doing something like unloading bags of concrete or whatever, it’s all going towards the tailgate. Deck height and width between wheel arches is what I care about here, along with ease of stepping into and out of the bed.

    I kinda see this in the same realm as a shortbed F150 or the old Explorer Sport-Trac; you buy it on the remote chance you’ll need to haul your 3000 pound camper or a few bags of concrete a few times a year, but not for any serious duty use.

    I don’t want one – the only EV truck that plays in my neck of the woods is the Rivian, and it’s too range-constrained and too heavy to go where I take my 4Runner today – but the assumption that people will care about such things is a touch misguided. They’re buying it for the aesthetics and the statement, same as Prii drivers of a decade ago or King Ranch Ford owners who would never deign to have a muddy boot inside their 80k truck.

    1. Modern trucks are so tall, you can’t really load in and out from the side anymore anyway. It’s why I shake my head at formerly small trucks like the modern Ford Ranger.

    2. One of the things I like about my Maverick is that it’s pretty easy to reach over the side and grab stuff. I don’t have to clamber up in the bed to get things close to the cab. Ford made a point of it in the marketing for the launch. But I suspect there’s not much overlap between Maverick buyers and CT buyers…

      1. What’s interesting is that even the Maverick’s bedsides are substantially higher than my 98 Ranger/B-Series 2WD. I think the Maverick is like 51″ versus 43″ for the old truck.

    3. I was loading my truck yesterday, At least 3 things were loaded over the side rails. But it’s a Colorado. Any full size truck is too high up to do that.

  13. I’m not interested in owning one of these myself but I can’t wait to see them in traffic spicing up my normal commute mix of grey/white/black crossovers and F-150s.

  14. On the plus side the sharp edges and flat panels should be really easy to wrap right? Which is something a lot of Tesla owners seem to do. Maybe they’ll add a Factory wrap option? Maybe a nice wood grain look or some such.

  15. I wonder how long it’ll be before some horse’s ass gets a hold of one of these and does a full mirror polish on the finish. I’m betting first week.

    2. You aren’t thinking big enough — mirror wrap would be easy. No, what’s going to get folks knickers twisted will be the laser etching. Mark my words.

  16. The elevator wall in my building is stainless steel. Every so often the wall looks like a couple of people were, uh, doing a different kind of elevating.

    1. I once leased an apartment in a new (at the time) upscale complex that catered to young professionals – so stainless everywhere. I got a tour right before I signed my lease, and as soon as we walked into one of the stainless-lined elevators we saw the clear skin oil outline of a romantic couple’s activities.

      I hope when that happens to one of these Cybertrucks it will be easier to clean than that elevator wall, because those marks were there for weeks despite the complex cleaning team’s best efforts.

  19. Elon tends to luck into random things. Electric cars now just make Tesla another commodity manufacturer, and its “self-driving” technology is nothing particularly special, with many saying Mercedes is in the lead. But now Elon has lucked into the UAW kneecapping three of his closest competitors just as they get into electrification. Quite a lucky guy. I wonder how many TSLA shares Shawn Fain has?

  21. BECAUSE BUILDING AN “EXOSKELETON” FROM STAINLESS STEEL FOR A CONSUMER VEHICLE IS FUCKING DUMB.

    I’d very much like to see the official Tesla body repair manuals/guidance when they come out.

    1. I seem to recall reading somewhere that it isn’t as much of an exoskeleton design as was originally intended/marketed, but don’t quote me on that.

  22. will not be exactly ideal for, you know, truck shit.

    Let’s be honest, a lot of trucks aren’t. Massive lifts mean you aren’t reaching in over the bed, towing is worse with a hitch receiver up too high, and the suspension and wheels people put on them aren’t great for payload.

    It’s a terrible design for a lot of reasons, but the reasons it’s not good for truck shit may not be a deal breaker for a lot of truck buyers.

    1. This is like, comically useless truck bed though. It’s as if the bed design was made to prevent you from wanting to ever use it.

      Yes, that should be fine for half the truck drivers out there with fresh, unused beds. But you’ve got to imagine that crowd wants people to think that they use their truck bed, right?

      1. Sure, this is absolutely even worse than even the lifted brodozers. In so many ways. I’m just saying ability to do truck shit isn’t necessarily the priority here.

        It’s going to be worse at being a car, off-roading, hauling passengers…probably louder interior. It looks like it will be terrible in collisions, especially with pedestrians or bicyclists. And, as you point out, it’s not even going to project the “truck” image.

        I just think it’s easy to forget that trucks are lifestyle vehicles for a certain percentage of buyers. What we consider truck stuff isn’t their priority, or even on the list for some of them.

        1. It’ll be really interesting to see how that plays out from the angle of a social experiment. How useless can a truck bed get before intended image projection doesn’t work? What lifestyle is this supposed to be anyway? Will the weird nerds that buy these Teslas get what they want out of these? Or will Brad, the high school QB, who coal rolled his way into town, still remind them of the swirly that they gave them at the 20 year high school reunion? Will Brad like them now?

    2. While I agree to a point with this, much of what you describe was built in by the manufacturer. Those are cases where users made the product less useful. Here the OEM built in that uselessness right from the factory.

      1. I’m sorry if this sounded like a defense of this or something about the uselessness of pickups. I just mean that it’s obvious that “truck stuff” isn’t a priority for a percentage of truck buyers/owners. I think this is a shitty design for many reasons, and I wouldn’t want one, but I don’t think the potential buyer needs a truck for any utility it provides.

  23. I think this thing is the most poorly “designed” vehicle since the Aztek? No, it’s worse than that.. Edsel? No I actually kinda like those… Ok I don’t know when, but I hate the look, and the function or lack thereof is even worse. I do have to admit though that I love the tail/brake light distinction! That is cool and I would love to see other companies adopt something similar.

    1. Meh, the Aztek was ugly but it was actually a pretty decent design from a utility standpoint. The Cybertruck doesn’t even have that going for it.

      1. Agreed. It was probably the most practical car of the era. Especially with the tent that attached to the rear hatch! They were super innovative and I like them a lot from that point of view, but yes. Ugly as sin

        1. Right, the Aztec was ugly, but useful and honestly, cheap. This is expensive and stupid looking. Form over function only works when the form isn’t hideous.

      2. I’ll probably take a look at the Aztek in my upcoming design classics series at some point, but yes. Its main faults were aesthetic and construction quality. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with the idea as we now know, but the execution was a typical GM fumble.

        2. Please do, the shaming is similar to the multipla but designwise, it’s like any “coupé” suv that are popping out since 10years, way less ugly than a X4.

    2. I basically hate the Cybertruck design, but I too have to admit that that rear/brake light is actually clever and intuitive. Words, that can not be used to describe very many Tesla innovations.

  24. “Get the stainless steel” they said, “It’s not that hard to keep clean,” they kept insisting.

    “All the professional kitchens use it.”

    My fridge looks like a crime scene.

    3. I have been cranky about stainless steel refrigerators for years, luckily it seems that white fridges are once again available – and not just for poverty-spec or top-end ones.

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