Get The Drive’s daily newsletter
The latest car news, reviews, and features.
A few weeks back, a mostly stock Tesla Cybertruck took on the Rubicon Trail and got infamously stuck. The electric pickup eventually made it out, but not before running into one problem after another, with a broken steering rack sidelining it on Cadillac Hill for days. I wrote about the attempt when the rig was still tied to a tree along the trail, and afterward, I spoke with the owner, who shared his side of the story. Now, there’s a YouTube video documenting the run from start to finish, and let me just say: It looks like even less fun than I expected.
The mini-documentary is live now on Cybertruck Co.’s channel, and it’s surprisingly raw. The crew is honest about how tough they expected the trek to be from the start, but before long, they realized it was going to be even worse. “I thought it was going to be a little easier than this,” the Cybertruck’s owner Roger Davis said after traveling 1.5 miles in five hours. “I thought there was going to be some more trail between obstacles, I’ll say that. I didn’t realize it was one big obstacle.”
Ideally, both tires point in the same direction. Cybertruck Co. via YouTube
From one broken tie rod to the next, the Cybertruck’s Rubicon run was full of brief intermissions and a few long ones. A modified Jeep Wrangler accompanied the Tesla as a support vehicle, dragging it along when there wasn’t a tree for the Cybertruck’s Harbor Freight winch to hook up to. It also carried spare parts—a must, considering how much hardware was consumed during the trip.
It’s important to note that practically any full-size truck would struggle on the Rubicon without significant mods. Sure, Wrangler owners will tell you that they beat it on 33-inch tires, but they simply don’t have the footprint or the heft of a bigger rig. It seems clear that the Cybertruck’s size was its undoing, as its steering and suspension components just aren’t made to handle any sort of impact with the boulders that define the Rubicon’s terrain.
The situation at Cadillac Hill was dire, no doubt about it. Cybertruck Co. via YouTube
Although they ran into a bit of a charging nightmare at Rubicon Springs, a “guardian angel” who asked to remain anonymous came to their rescue with a big generator. They say that plenty of people actually offered to help throughout the trip. A couple of off-road enthusiasts who work at Tesla were responsible for getting it back on the trail after it busted the steering rack at Cadillac Hills.
From the sounds of it, most folks on the Rubicon were more encouraging than those in the comments, but not all of them. I talked with several off-roaders who saw the Cybertruck struggling through certain sections, as well as a handful who saw it at Cadillac Hill, and they were critical of the attempt. In a way, so was the truck’s owner.
“I don’t recommend it,” Davis said at the end of it all. “It was a dream, it was a bucket list item, but I don’t recommend it.”
To see the Cybertruck’s full, week-long adventure on the Rubicon, check out the 41-minute video below:
Got a tip or question for the author? Contact them directly: caleb@thedrive.com
From running point on new car launch coverage to editing long-form features and reviews, Caleb does some of everything at The Drive. And he really, really loves trucks.
