When Lamar finally got the keys to his Cybertruck, he couldn’t believe his luck. He had coveted the four-ton stainless-steel colossus ever since he first laid eyes on it five years ago, and after two months of persistent lobbying, his wife consented to putting down a deposit.
“My family was initially against it. They thought it looked too ugly, so I had a lot of convincing to do,” the 33-year-old says.
Yet the dream of owning one of the very first Cybertrucks morphed into a four-month-long nightmare.
Just two weeks in, the spanking new $100,000 vehicle broke down and proceeded to spend more time in the shop than on the road as Tesla mechanics struggled to keep the electrical systems up and running.
After multiple loaners, mounting desperation, and a half-dozen visits to a Raleigh, N.C., service center nearly two hours’ drive away, he took to social media because he could find no other way to escalate the issue.
By the time Tesla relented and granted him a replacement that also ended up breaking down, the issue had reached the personal attention of CEO Elon Musk himself, who assured Lamar the company would make good.
But the scars remain, and even if all is forgiven, it is not forgotten.
“You’re on edge, scared to even go a distance in it”
The entire excruciating experience, which he shared with Fortune, reveals a culture at Tesla that, while daring and innovative, can be in equal parts unaccountable.
“Every time we drive we wonder if it is going to break again,” he says. “It’s always in your thoughts. You’re on edge, scared to even go a distance in it.”
The tight-knit community of loyal owners can be supportive, but often only if problems are handled discretely and out of the public eye.
We’ll get it fixed pronto
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2024
Otherwise, support can turn into harassment—which is one reason why Lamar, whose full name is known to this publication, prefers not to see his last name in print.
While his story is an extreme case, it broadly mimics problems with the vehicle that have resulted in multiple recalls for entirely other issues, such as unintended acceleration, a faulty windshield wiper, and plastic trim that can fly off while driving.
Other customers have complained about “phantom drain,” the speed at which the battery charge is depleted when not in use.
The truck features a whole slew of new technology, including steer-by-wire, which removes any mechanical connection between the driver’s steering wheel and the front axle.
Its unique wedge shape stems from the metal’s inability to be pressed in three-dimensional stamping dies—it can be bent only into straight creases and sharp edges. If you want it in any color, it has to be wrapped in vinyl or urethane since paint does not adhere properly to stainless steel.
Lamar’s experience with the vehicle, which began two weeks in with the first breakdown, may also explain why profitability at Tesla’s core car business just reached a five-year low.
Piper Sandler analyst Alex Potter suspects a spike in warranty costs stemming from the complex nature of the Cybertruck’s engineering is behind auto gross margins dropping to 14.6% in the past quarter, the lowest in at least five years.
And now, engineering problems that plagued the electric pickup risk being swept under the rug just as the carmaker prepares to launch its next new vehicle.
“It was the truck of my dreams”
When production of the truck finally launched last November in Texas—years behind schedule in part because of supply-chain shortages following the pandemic—Lamar had already given up. That summer he had bought his first Tesla, a Model Y he called Cherry.
As soon as he found out he could spend Tesla credits earned from referring customers to the brand—a virtual currency that can buy merch, free supercharging miles, or a complimentary month of full self-driving—he blew half of them just to be bumped up higher on the waiting list for the Cybertruck.
His was one of the first 2,000 Cybertrucks built and the first dispatched to his local Tesla service center in North Carolina in March this year.
“They were just as excited as I was,” he recalls.
The Tesla enthusiast knew the kinks that can come with owning a model right after the start of production, but Lamar was more than willing to take that risk. “It was the truck of my dreams.”
His all-wheel-drive Foundation Series was the most expensive vehicle he ever bought.
He christened it Beskar, after the prized alloy adorning the armor of Mandalorians like Boba Fett. Soon Lamar would find out the truck was nothing like the invulnerable metal from Star Wars canon.
Cybertruck is Musk’s boldest gamble yet
For the Tesla CEO, the Cybertruck is deeply personal. This time it wasn’t just the propulsion technology or the software that dared be different: The whole design shattered the convention of full-size pickups, a segment so quintessentially American that almost all are sold in the United States.
As Musk’s boldest gamble yet, it was exactly the kind of risk that differentiated Tesla from the rest of the pack and earned it such a following.
The Cybertruck doesn’t even sport a traditional badge, and arguably, it doesn’t need one. Either you hate it or love it, but there’s no chance one could possibly confuse it with a rival.
Musk harbored no illusions about the stakes. He readily conceded the vehicle could flop three years ago.
“I don’t care. I love it so much even if others don’t,” he wrote. “Cybertruck looks like it was made by aliens from the future.”
On the one hand, it is the butt of numerous jokes. People have laughed at raccoons mistaking it for a dumpster; there’s an entire subreddit called “Cyberstuck” dedicated to the truck breaking down, and it’s even been lampooned on Comedy Central’s Daily Show as the “Cybercuck.”
But it’s also been a beloved subject of social media, with people filming themselves emptying firearms at the ultra-hard bullet-resistant exterior, jumping up and down on its reinforced windshield and roof like madmen, or whaling at it with baseball bats.
Kim Kardashian is just one of many celebrities spotted driving one, and YouTube’s biggest star MrBeast recently held a contest where 10 contestants could each win a Cybertruck as a prize.
On Tuesday, Tesla said it had already surpassed the Rivian R1T and the Ford F-150 Lightning to become the No. 1 electric pickup in the U.S. market. As production ramped up, the vehicle remained on track to achieve profitability by year-end.
Cybertruck struck by repeated problems
For Lamar, that is little consolation since he suffered repeated problems over the course of four months.
Much like his truck, Lamar broke down, realizing the vehicle was more trouble than it was worth. He didn’t want his money back, but he also didn’t want his Cybertruck anymore. Beskar had to go.
Tesla offered to buy it from him and end the transaction there, but a new order meant he would have to wait for an unknown period to get a new one. According to Musk, there were 1 million customers in line when the truck launched, and the Texas factory has installed capacity to build only an eighth of that this year.
Moreover, the terms of his bank loan would also change, so Lamar asked for it to be replaced under North Carolina’s lemon law.
After a long back-and-forth and yet another trip to the nearest Tesla service center, he recorded a video in absolute frustration in which he said he could no longer recommend a Tesla in good conscience. He then immediately uploaded the video to social media before starting the long drive back home in North Carolina.
Someone at the company must have been alerted, probably through someone in the community who saw it, since only an hour later, during a rest stop at McDonald’s, he received a call. On the phone was a Tesla manager authorized to replace it, and within a week, he had a new truck.
“At that point I was honestly done with Tesla. That was going to be it for me. It just so happened they called me that same day and made it right,” he says. “The phone call came in the nick of time.”
Relieved, Lamar deleted the video of his own accord.
Musk’s intervention
In the meantime, Tesla had more opportunity to practice, having built another 10,000 Cybertrucks.
Instantly noticing the build quality looked pristine compared with his previous pickup, Lamar was elated and quickly wrapped it in blue for a few thousand extra dollars while he went on vacation. But after returning from vacation, the truck was dead—it wouldn’t charge, and nothing worked.
“It was completely unresponsive, just this giant brick in my garage,” Lamar said. “What if that happened when I was in the middle of nowhere?”
By that point it was July, and Lamar uploaded a series of tweets to Musk’s social media platform once more, documenting his problems to prove to those in the community that he hadn’t created the issue himself just to gain attention.
Lamar doesn’t care whether it ruffles any feathers. “I just want Tesla to be better,” he says. “That is why I’m pointing it out.”
To his surprise and delight, Musk was alerted to it, and he soon contacted him, telling him it would be fixed immediately.
A few weeks in, Lamar confirms he’s had no further problems. He’s happy and finally has what he wants. But he had to suffer trial by fire—and not everyone will likely have the same patience.
“The curse has been lifted,” he tells Fortune. He always had faith Tesla would get there in the end: “I don’t have any regrets.”
