Cybertruck

Make
Tesla
Segment
Sports Car

While we don't really believe that the Tesla Cybertruck is anything more than a headline-grabbing first rendering of a concept vehicle, we'll play along here. Tesla is certainly talking like its production bound and, according to Electrek, considers it to be a "medium-duty truck." That would put it in the same category as the Chevrolet Silverado, GMC Sierra 2500, Ford F-250, Ram 2500, and Nissan Titan XD. It allows Tesla to give its concept the even more sci-fi name of the Cybertruck 2500, but, more importantly, it should put to rest the silly comparisons with the Ford F-150.

The classification comes from a filing about Tesla's thoughts on the California Air Resources Board's (CARB) new Advanced Clean Truck rule. The proposed rule would require truck manufacturers to sell zero-emission electric trucks as an increasing percentage of their California sales from 2024 to 2030. In the filing, Tesla says:

"Tesla just recently announced the development of its first pickup truck, the Cybertruck. As of November 26, less than one week from the launch of the Cybertruck, Tesla already received more than 250,000 orders for the Cybertruck. While we have not yet begun production of the Cybertruck, we expect it to have a towing capacity of 7,500-14,000+ lbs, and it should very likely qualify as a "Class 2B-3" medium-duty vehicle."

What this shows is that with the Cybertruck thrust into the medium-duty truck category, its load and towing specs are not as impressive as Tesla has been making out. Its payload of 3,500 lbs and a max towing capacity of 14,000 lbs now goes against the F-250's 4,332 lbs payload and max tow capacity of 15,000 lbs.

In top-spec, the Ford F-250 weighs 8,600 lbs. We would like to see that in a towing rematch against the Tri-Motor AWD Cybertruck, even if the publicity stunt tells you nothing of the sustained towing capacity of either truck.