What is a Cybertruck?

The Cybertruck is Tesla's electric pickup truck, and the first thing anyone notices is the way it looks. It is flat, sharp-edged, and wrapped in bare, unpainted metal, closer to a prop from a science-fiction film than to a normal pickup. The body is thick, hard stainless steel, the same metal SpaceX uses on its Starship rocket and up to 1.8 millimeters thick in the doors, and Tesla calls it an exoskeleton.

Tesla built the body to stop a 9mm handgun round, which makes the Cybertruck the only regular pickup sold bullet-resistant from the factory. Elon has said the side panels stop handguns, a shotgun, and even a Tommy gun.

He first revealed the Cybertruck on November 21, 2019, and later called it on X "an armored personnel carrier from the future, what Bladerunner would have driven."

Trims and capability

The Cybertruck is a five-seat pickup with a six-foot bed. In 2026 Tesla sells three versions: the Dual Motor all-wheel drive (AWD), the Premium AWD, which adds adjustable air suspension, and the Cyberbeast, a faster three-motor version. Tesla also sold a cheaper single-motor version for part of 2025. Under the stainless steel it is a working truck that hauls and tows like a full-size pickup.

Why the Cybertruck Exists

Pickups make up close to one in six new vehicles sold in the United States, so even a small share of that market is a big business, and in 2019 Tesla had no truck to sell. The strange shape came from a way of thinking Elon calls first principles: start from the basic science instead of copying what everyone else does. Thick stainless steel is very hard to stamp into the smooth curves of a normal car body, so Tesla designed the truck around flat panels and sharp folds. Owners get a body that resists dents and rust, along with a look nobody mistakes for any other truck.

How it Works

Under the steel is a 123 kilowatt-hour battery built from 1,344 of Tesla's 4680 cells, cylinders 46 millimeters wide and 80 millimeters tall, and it holds enough electricity to run a typical American home for about four days. It powers either a Dual Motor setup with about 600 horsepower or the three-motor Cyberbeast with 845. The old single-motor version took 6.2 seconds to reach 60 mph, the Dual Motor takes about 4.1, and the Cyberbeast 2.6, supercar pace for a truck that weighs around 6,600 to 6,900 pounds. The Dual Motor tows 7,500 pounds. The Premium and Cyberbeast tow 11,000 pounds, and their air suspension lifts the body from about 8 inches of ground clearance to about 17. The bed carries up to 2,500 pounds.

At the November 2023 delivery event, Tesla showed a video of a Cybertruck beating a Porsche 911 in a drag race while towing a second 911 on a trailer.

The Economics of the Cybertruck

Range and price set the truck's economics. In 2019 Tesla targeted more than 500 miles on a charge for the top version, and the 2026 Cyberbeast is rated at about 320 miles, with the Dual Motor at about 325.

On price, Tesla announced a $39,900 starting price in 2019. The Dual Motor now starts at $69,990, after a $59,990 introductory price that ran from late February to March 1, 2026. The Premium AWD costs $79,990 and the Cyberbeast $99,990, all before fees.

Current Status of Cybertruck

Tesla built the first Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas in July 2023, and the first trucks reached buyers on November 30, 2023. Tesla does not report Cybertruck sales separately. It counts them with the Model S, Model X, and its other low-volume vehicles in an "other models" line that delivered 50,850 vehicles in all of 2025. Cox Automotive, which tracks US sales, estimates about 39,000 Cybertrucks sold in 2024 and about 20,200 in 2025. In the third quarter of 2026 the "other models" line delivered 8,295 vehicles. The more than 2 million deposits show how many people wanted the truck from the start.

Public Reaction to Cybertruck

The window demo. At the 2019 reveal, Tesla's lead designer Franz von Holzhausen threw a steel ball at the "armor glass" to show how tough it was, and the window cracked while the ball stayed outside. Elon laughed on stage, Tesla leaned into the moment, and two days later Elon reported 146,000 orders.

Building in stainless steel. Ultra-hard stainless steel is harder to shape than stamped panels, and early owners paid close attention to panel gaps and trim. In March 2025 Tesla issued a recall covering all 46,096 Cybertrucks built to that point to secure a stainless-steel trim panel along the roofline, and service centers did the work at no charge.

What Comes Next

Tesla keeps refining the lineup: it retired the optional range-extender battery plan in May 2025 and the single-motor version later that year, and it added a Dual Motor without air suspension in February 2026. The biggest lever is cost, the same one that made the Model 3 affordable. As 4680 cells get cheaper and the Texas factory builds more trucks, the price can come down far enough to turn more of those deposits into trucks on the road.

Elon has also said where he would like the truck to end up.

The Bottom Line

The Cybertruck delivered the look, the speed, and the toughness Elon promised in 2019, and cheaper 4680 cells from Gigafactory Texas are the path to lower prices and more trucks on the road.