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TESLA CYBERTRUCK WORLD EXCLUSIVE, FIRST DRIVING IMPRESSIONS (PLURAL)

- JOHN PHILLIPS & EDITOR, MONTANA DESK

IN HOPES OF GETTING HIM BACK IN THE FOLD, WE SENT JOHN PHILLIPS A TESLA CYBERTRUCK. A WEEK LATER, HE SENT THIS BACK.

ROLL ME IN PETUNIAS, but didn't Car and Driver ship me a Tesla Cybertruck via FedEx? Not tootin' my own horn, but I'm a guy who notices the little things in life, such as things that sting or bite. Course, the C'truck is a darn big thing. Does it bite? Let's find out!

I usually hate to bust into math straight off, because me and numbers equals Confucius. But here goes: Tesla says right out loud that their truck will carry 3500 pounds, meaning it could haul my 1970 Mustang Boss 302 in the cargo bed if somebody slid her in there half-teeter wedgewise. The battery pack has to be as heavy as the Hummer EV's, so add another 2923 pounds. Then the truck itself is, I don't know, 2.5 tons? Check my math, but fully loaded, this gray goose is gonna stomp dirt at right around 11,400 pounds, give or take, depending on that day's Starbucks selection. That's the weight of the Detroit Tigers plus 1.5 hotdog stands.

[The tech department would like a word with you-Ed.]

Another thing about battery packs: You're always driving around loaded even unloaded, because it doesn't matter how much juice you pour into her, what with electricity hardly weighing anything which I seriously did not know. A whole frying pan full of 110 volts, even 220 of them, weighs less than the hair clogging my sink, practically zero, even on those teal scales that Costco sells.

So it seemed peculiar that the one that arrived from C/D weighs only four pounds with a battery pack of mere ounces, meaning, I guess, that Elid Mulkx has slid headfirst down a lubed downsizing chute. Sorry, but I cannot ever remember that man's name, though I once jumbled the letters and came up with Lone Smuk. That doesn't sound South African to me. Icelandic, maybe.