2024 Tesla Cybertruck Dual Motor Real-World Range Test: Beat by Ford and Rivian
What Tesla’s electric pickup lacks in range, it at least makes up for with impressive fast-charging performance.
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The 2024 Tesla Cybertruck has the look of an apocalyptic war wagon dreamed up in Minecraft, but don’t let that trick you into thinking it was designed solely to project an image. The stainless-steel trapezoid was also sculpted—or maybe chiseled—by the wind. The Cybertruck’s Kamm tail shape is a big reason Tesla can claim a 0.34 drag coefficient and be taken seriously.
Surprisingly, though, that aerodynamic shape isn’t enough to give Tesla’s electric truck a range advantage over electric pickups with more conventional designs like the Ford F-150 Lightning and the Rivian R1T. MotorTrend testing shows that when it comes to real-world range, the Cybertruck hasn’t advanced the game.
In the MotorTrend Road-Trip Range Test, the 2024 Tesla Cybertruck Dual Motor Foundation Series covered 224 miles, or 94 miles less than its official 318-mile range. Note that we don’t expect vehicles to match or beat their advertised range. Our test is tougher than the EPA procedure as it’s designed to give shoppers a realistic idea of how much ground they can cover during a long highway trip. We drive an out-and-back loop at a constant 70 mph (much faster than the EPA test average) and use 95 percent of the full battery capacity because risking a dead battery is a fool’s errand. We know from experience that running out of charge in an EV is a massive headache.
How Tesla Cybertruck Range Compares to Ford and Rivian
All that said, falling 30 percent short of the window-sticker number places the Cybertruck among the worst performers in our database of 56 EVs when it comes to the difference between advertised range and MT Road-Trip range. We ran on the highway with the tonneau cover closed for optimum aerodynamics, but the privately owned Cybertruck we tested didn’t come with aero wheel covers. Tesla stopped delivering them after early customers discovered the covers were wearing away at the tire sidewalls. The company hasn’t updated its claimed range since that change, so we’re unclear how much impact they have on aerodynamics.
More relevant to buyers, the Cybertruck also lands at the low end among its competitors based on the number that matters most: range. It’s bracketed by a 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum (222 miles) and a 2022 Rivian R1T Launch Edition on all-terrain tires (228 miles), but other versions of these trucks claim to go farther than Tesla’s truck. Our long-term F-150 Lightning Lariat Extended Range hit 255 miles, and a similarly priced 2024 Rivian R1T Dual Motor Performance with the 141-kWh Max Pack achieved 264 miles in our testing. A 2023 GMC Hummer EV 3X is good for 310 miles on the highway with its massive 205-kWh battery pack. The Cybertruck might be relatively efficient for a pickup truck, but any advantage isn’t big enough to offset the fact that its 123-kWh battery is smaller than the packs used in comparable Lightning and R1T models.
How Far Can the Tesla Cybertruck Tow in the Real World?
We also range-tested the Cybertruck Dual Motor hitched to a 3,170-pound Bowlus Volterra travel trailer over a loop that included 65 percent highway travel at 70 mph and 35 percent suburban driving that brought the overall average speed down to 50 mph. Despite the lower-speed duty cycle, the extra weight and aerodynamic drag of towing dropped the range to 160 miles. That penalty is right in line with what we’ve experienced in other electric trucks. The take-away follows what we’ve been saying ever since we towed with a Ford F-150 Lightning the first time: EVs make great tow vehicles if you stay relatively close to home. Their strong and smooth torque delivery makes light work of pulling heavy loads. Towing long distances with an EV, though, takes a lot of patience and planning.
The Supercharger Advantage
The good news for anyone towing or traveling farther than 224 miles is that Tesla’s Superchargers can get you back on the road relatively quickly. When we plugged in with a 5 percent charge, the Cybertruck hit 249 kW within the first minute and sustained that power for five minutes. In the first 15 minutes, it added 94 miles of highway driving range, more than the R1T Dual Motor Performance Max Pack and the F-150 Lightning Platinum.
The Tesla’s strong start faded as the power fell rapidly from its peak. Nine minutes after plugging in both trucks, the Cybertruck’s charging power dropped below that of the Rivian R1T Dual Motor Performance Max Pack, which reached its 216-kW peak 11 minutes in. The Rivian then sucked down more power for the next 31 minutes. A half hour after initiating charging, the R1T had added 158 miles of range while the Cybertruck had gained 146 miles.
Current EV owners know that long-distance trips aren’t just about charging speed and range, though. A smooth EV road trip relies on easily finding functioning chargers. There’s no question that Tesla is the leader in that respect. The shape of the Cybertruck’s stainless-steel body and the size of its battery pack might not advance EV pickups as we were hoping for, but the shape and size of Tesla’s charging network and its in-car route planner remain an undeniable advantage of owning a Tesla, even as other automakers gain access to it.
I fell in love with car magazines during sixth-grade silent reading time and soon realized that the editors were being paid to drive a never-ending parade of new cars and write stories about their experiences. Could any job be better? The answer was obvious to 11-year-old me. By the time I reached high school, becoming an automotive journalist wasn’t just a distant dream, it was a goal. I joined the school newspaper and weaseled my way into media days at the Detroit auto show. With a new driver’s license in my wallet, I cold-called MotorTrend’s Detroit editor, who graciously agreed to an informational interview and then gave me the advice that set me on the path to where I am today. Get an engineering degree and learn to write, he said, and everything else would fall into place. I left nothing to chance and majored in both mechanical engineering and journalism at Michigan State, where a J-school prof warned I’d become a “one-note writer” if I kept turning in stories about cars for every assignment. That sounded just fine by me, so I talked my way into GM’s Lansing Grand River Assembly plant for my next story. My child-like obsession with cars started to pay off soon after. In 2007, I won an essay contest to fly to the Frankfurt auto show and drive the Saturn Astra with some of the same writers I had been reading since sixth grade. Winning that contest launched my career. I wrote for Jalopnik and Edmunds, interned at Automobile, finished school, and turned down an engineering job with Honda for full-time employment with Automobile. In the years since, I’ve written for Car and Driver, The New York Times, and now, coming full circle, MotorTrend. It has been a dream. A big chunk of this job is exactly what it looks like: playing with cars. I’m happiest when the work involves affordable sporty hatchbacks, expensive sports cars, manual transmissions, or any technology that requires I learn something to understand how it works, but I’m not picky. If it moves under its own power, I’ll drive it.
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