(Music)
Way too fast.
Can the Tesla Cybertruck off-road?
If you've seen any of those viral videos
where it gets stuck on some not very steep slopes,
you're probably thinking, no.
However, Tesla is about to release a new off-road app.
It's basically a suite of new software
that has a load more off-road modes.
And, crucially, activates the front and rear diff lock.
So that should make a big difference.
So we thought we'd put it through a real test
and we've come out to Johnson Valley and brought along a Rivian R1T
as a rival to see how it compares.
So we're going to do some whoops, we're going to do a jump,
we're going to go through some sand dunes and we're going to do some rock crawling.
- Yeah, and we've already done some drifting around on a dry lake bed,
a drag race,
and we've actually slept in these trucks, as well.
Those are in separate videos.
And those were in the tri-motor version of the Cybertruck.
Here, we've got a dual-motor version with 600hp
because you get mechanical diff locks on both axles.
Right. We'd better get them prepared, hadn't we.
What do we need to do to prep these up?
[Ollie] We've aired down the tyres.
We've dropped them from 50psi down to 30.
We need to take those wheel covers off the Tesla, though,
because I reckon they're going to get pulled off in the rough stuff.
Yeah. They just clip on, don't they?
Yeah. So, right. You sort that side, I'll sort the other.
The last thing we need to do is send a prayer up to the off-road Gods.
- (Laughs) - Look after us!
To put the Cybertruck's new off-road app
and locking diffs to the test,
we needed to find somewhere gnarly enough for a proper workout
without ending up on our roof.
Somewhere like this.
Ah, this looks gnarly as hell.
Look at the size of these boulders off to the side.
Right. Challenge is, then,
can we get the Cybertruck to the top?
I think it's going to be a challenge,
but I have got quite a lot of stuff to play with to help me out.
I've locked up all the differentials. Well, front and rear.
Centre diff is a virtual diff, obviously, in here.
Ride height is in 'very high'. If necessary, if I start scraping,
I can hit 'extract', which will take me up another two inches.
What I can do, which is quite clever though,
I can press the cruise control button
and then wind my cruise control back to 4mph here,
which does not only hill descent, but it also manages your speed uphill.
And I can increase it and decrease it with the throttle and brake.
But here we go,
feet of everything, just climbing up here at 4mph.
Ollie, I'm going to be your spotter today.
Sorry, no-one else was available.
Bit more left-hand down.
Right. Let's give that a go.
- That's it.
And... That's it. Straighten the wheels.
Straighten the wheels.
Very nice.
- Whoo! (Laughs)
- Fraction the left-hand down.
God, sitting on the rocks. There's another spiky one, just after that.
The moment you hit this rock,
your rear tyre’s going to hit another rock.
Lots of rocks, in other words.
I should do this for a living.
Don't be a chicken. Go for it.
- I've got to say, I'm blown away by what this is capable of.
Standard suspension, standard tyres.
Hoo, it's heavy, though.
You can feel it crushing rock.
- Stay left.
Yeah... Give it... Lovely.
You probably can't see anything but sky right now. But there it is, it's all yours.
- Yes! High five!
Ah, look what we have conquered.
Yeah. Now you need to do some proper work
and help me get the Rivian up here.
- Yeah. Exactly. - Yeah?
OK. My turn in the Rivian.
In terms of modes, Rock Crawl mode.
Pretty obvious, that one. We got the ride height in its highest setting.
We've got the hold button on, which means when I come off the throttle,
I shouldn't roll backwards, which is a big no-no in off-roading.
Because it's got four motors,
you don't have to mess around with anything old-fashioned like diffs.
You've got full independent control of each wheel.
- Yeah, it's pretty loose and bumpy through here.
Right, start coming over now.
There we go. Right, slowly.
Now, straight.
You need to go straight, now. That's it.
Woah!
- Good amount of angle.
22 degrees of roll.
Feels like I could fall down that mountain at any time.
- That's it. Woah! Perfect.
OK. Woah! Slowly, slowly.
This is fun.
You're going to point your left wheel at me.
And when you say left wheel, you mean right wheel?
I do.
- I've conquered this very small bit of mountain.
That's really impressive. That's pretty severe.
Yeah, that was fun. I mean, I say fun.
All of these off-road activities are slightly fraught with anxiety.
Yeah, there's jeopardy involved.
Next up was the whoops.
Those vicious undulations that can shake a car to bits.
In other words, the ultimate test of suspension, durability and body control.
Right. You're going to have a go at the whoops, then.
- The things that try to destroy your car. - They're horrible. They're absolutely horrible.
But a pretty good test of suspension, body control, all that sort of good stuff.
And driver willpower because if you hit them too hard,
then you're just going to break into something. - And break yourself as well.
Break myself.
But you've devised a little game here, right? - I have.
You are going to go against the clock.
- Yeah, right. I'm in Baja mode. - Yep.
I'm in 'high' ride height, but not very high,
because very high limits your top speed. - You’d be limited to about 22mph or something.
Yeah, don't want to do that. Are you ready?
I am. Three, two, one. Go!
(Laughs) Flippin' hell.
Ooh! It is butt-puckering.
There's some unpleasant noises coming from that car already.
- I want to go fast. I want to beat Ollie,
But I don't want to break the Cybertruck.
Well, it's quite stiffly sprung.
It's sort of tickling along over the ground there.
Dealing with them really well.
And actually, the more confident I get and the more speed I give it,
the better it gets.
Patience, Jack. Patience.
Right. This is the turnaround point.
It's got to be...
Right, this is where my superior turning circle is going to pay off.
Look at that.
Hey, hey, hey, hey!
38, 39.5.
I can't seem to get over 40mph.
It doesn't like it.
Two minutes 10.
Ooh, It's taking a bit longer than I expected, actually.
He's going a bit slowly.
O... K. Don't get overconfident, Jack.
You're doing well, mate, you're doing well.
There's the finish line.
Here I come!
And, stop!
Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
Oh, the GoPro's still attached.
- Yes, they are. - Are the wheels still attached?
The wheels are still attached. Do you want to know how fast you went?
2 minutes, 37.42.
I probably shouldn't be giving you tips either,
but it was getting better the more speed I added. - Really?
I was getting up to, like, 40mph
and it was just coping with it. - Ooh!
So my advice to you is... Go for it.
Go!
That's the back wheels in the air already.
The tent on the back of that Rivian is jumping.
I have to say, dropping those tyre pressures down
does seem to have made an enormous difference.
Those back wheels are just in the air way too often.
This feels springier than the Cybertruck.
No idea how I'm doing on time, but I can't lose to Rix.
Right. Turnaround point. Bouncy.
This is quite alarming.
But the car, actually, it's staying pretty rattle and squeak free, I think.
50mph – that's way too fast.
(Laughs) Flippin' hell.
Well, I can see the rear of the truck pogoing around.
- Back end's bouncing around all over the place.
How did he go that much faster?
First and foremost, I'm glad that's over.
The back wheels were in the air more than they were on the ground.
Yeah, all right, yeah. Twenty seconds faster than me.
I'm not sure that's a fair reflection, actually,
because this one feels springier and bouncier than the Cybertruck.
The Cybertruck actually feels...
Stays more level over those whoops than this does.
So a moral victory for the Cybertruck, but it'll go down in the record books
as the Rivian's quicker. - Yeah, yeah.
How about something that really gets the blood flowing?
What are you going to say?
- Ah! - There's one just around the corner.
- Is there? - It'd be rude not to.
- OK. - Shall we do it?
- You lead the way. - It's over there.
And from one brutally tough test to another,
because next up, we'd be taking flight.
It was time for the jump.
Right, Jack.
Are you sure this is a good idea?
No. I'm not sure it's a good idea.
I have to say, it's very gentlemanly of you to let me go first, Ollie.
I am in position and ready.
So why don't you come and have a crack?
I'm going to sit here and watch the consequences.
Three, two, one. Go.
All right.
That's going really quite quickly.
Ooh!
(Laughs) How was that?
- It looked like you were going really fast in the run up to it.
- Yeah, it could definitely go faster.
I mean, you could, Ollie, with your superior driving skills.
I love the royal "you" that you're applying to that.
Ooh, brave pants on.
Let's go and have a go then.
Right, Ollie. It's your turn now.
Oh, I'm so looking forward to this.
I can sense that you're a bit grumpy.
The whoops were just painful on me.
This might well be painful on the car.
Just to remind you, you do have a massive tent clamped onto the back of your truck.
Yeah, says the man who knocked his tonneau cover out of position.
Everything's fixable. Right! Are you ready?
I've got front row seats for this.
Thank you, mate.
I'm off in three...
two, one, go.
He never backs down, Ollie, from something like this.
50mph – let's go a bit quicker.
56, 57, 58, 59.
Wow!
Whoa!
Wow. That flew.
God, it's such a stupid thing to do in cars like this,
but that is just phenomenal that it's built to withstand stuff like that.
Last but not least,
we headed for a drift about in the power-sapping sand dunes.
What do you think of this?
It's quite exciting, isn't it?
What a playground.
- I know, the views are just insane.
360 views – I've never seen anything like it.
And right in the slap bang in the middle of it, we've got our own personal,
sort of sandpit to play in, basically.
Right. Shall I have a go first?
Crack on. I'll cheer you on from here.
And then, you know, don't get stuck, basically.
It's absolutely bonkers when you're looking at the Cybertruck in the desert,
when you get the right angle, the sun just shines straight off the stainless steel.
I saw it driving off into the distance earlier and it was like a sort of UFO.
There we go.
- Oh, that looked good.
You can feel the traction just pulling in a bit occasionally.
So I think what might be required is a bit of Baja mode.
Go from Overland into Baja
and stick the slider to 80% rear.
- Stand back!
(Laughs) Instantly, it's got no traction whatsoever.
I know it's probably not as technically correct
as being in Sand mode, but Baja mode is excellent fun.
Ha ha ha! This is too much fun.
- All right, Mr Baja.
Stop ruining all my sand.
Can I have a go now?
Off you trot.
Right, I'll take his Baja mode, and I'll raise him a Rally mode.
I have to say, I think the tyres on this are making a big difference
because there was some stuff that Ollie was labouring on a bit earlier,
and I'm making them, like, super-easy.
- That looks so cool.
Love watching this thing slide around.
Look at it go!
You can see exactly how hard the suspension is working, as well.
Yeah, the suspension is working hard.
- I watched how high you bounced just then.
Hey! - Well, that's bloody good fun, isn't it?
You have to sort of guess that the wheels are spinning around.
because there's no engine to tell you where you are.
No. If you spin them enough,
they start digging their way downwards quite quickly.
- Well, look, I think we've got away with that one.
But worth it, because that was quite good fun.
So the mission was to take the Tesla Cybertruck,
get it away from the bright lights and the camera phones and the hordes
that follow it around everywhere,
and find out whether it's a proper off-road adventure truck. Is it?
Yes. There you go. Next question.
Easy answer.
No, I'm so impressed with what
I've been able to do with it over the last couple of days.
Yeah, seriously, the punishment that that thing has absorbed,
bashing about in the sand dunes, the whoops especially, they're pretty harsh.
The jump that wasn't very friendly and we've just been rock crawling over there.
- Yeah. - No damage.
You say that.
However, the jump might have had a couple of little victims.
The tonneau cover on the Cybertruck's been knocked slightly out of place.
And we've managed to bend one of the roof bars on the back of the Rivian.
- Yeah, the tent mountain.
So that's the tent's fault for being so heavy.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
It's nothing to do with the way that we drove the car. - No.
No, but the big question is — are you won over?
Could you see yourself being a Mr Cybertruck? - I tell you what...
I came into this really sceptical about the Cybertruck.
I just thought, it's going to be one of those triumphs of design
and desire over everything else.
And yet, I've come away from this really impressed by it.
When I first drove it in Los Angeles a few months ago,
it was all about the way the car looked,
and the celebrity of it, and I didn't want one.
But now, getting out here, getting away from all of that
and getting under the skin and seeing what it can do —
I want one.
There's just a bit of problem with that, though, isn't there?
- What? - It's never coming to the UK.
I can just carry on wanting one.
I might just put it on a poster on my bedroom wall like a teenager. Ah!