- The 2024 Tesla Cybertruck Beast made it 250 miles on a full charge in our 75-mph real-world highway range test.
- With a heavy-duty GVWR rating, the Cybertruck Beast isn’t required to have an EPA figure, but Tesla claims the 834-hp tri-motor Beast has 301 miles of range.
- The Cybertruck missed its mark by 51 miles, but that delta is similar to other EV trucks we’ve tested; the Beast also beat the 580-hp Ford F-150 Lightning’s 230-mile result.
Welcome to Car and Driver‘s Testing Hub, where we zoom in on the test numbers. We’ve been pushing vehicles to their limits since 1956 to provide objective data to bolster our subjective impressions (you can see how we test here).
The Tesla Cybertruck looks more like a machine that drove off the set of the movie Spaceballs than an electric vehicle you’d park next to at the local farmer’s market. Despite its unmistakable stainless-steel body featuring more right angles than a closet full of hand squares, it is an EV through and through. And one of the most important aspects of any EV—six-figure truck from space or not—is how many miles it can go before its battery is depleted. With three electric motors making a combined 834 horsepower, the Cybertruck Beast made it 250 miles in our testing. How does that compare with the other EV trucks we’ve tested? Let’s discuss.
Getting the Cybertruck’s Real-World Range
First off, it’s important to mention that the Cybertruck Beast is classified as a heavy-duty truck due to its titanic gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 9169 pounds. That means it’s exempt from EPA certification, so any range claims come directly from Tesla. Despite the lack of oversight, the company decided to conduct its own range test using the EPA’s light-duty methodology. That led to the all-wheel-drive Beast, with its 123.0-kWh battery pack, netting a Tesla-estimated range of 301 miles.
As with every EV that reaches Car and Driver’s testing team, we wanted to see how the Cybertruck Beast’s range is affected by real-world highway driving. So, we put it through our regimented range test, this time in California, which still involves setting the climate control to 72 degrees in its auto mode and maintaining a steady 75 mph. We also had the Cybertruck’s wheel covers in place and—most importantly—the power tonneau cover closed. The latter is a serious aero enhancer, as Tesla’s engineers told us it’s worth nearly 10 percent in drag. We followed the same testing procedure with the other electric trucks we’ve tested, except that each of those tests were performed in Michigan.
Among the other EV pickups we’ve tested, only the GMC Hummer EV Edition 1 wasn’t required to report to the EPA. Its massive 205.0-kWh battery helped the 1000-hp all-wheel-drive monster go 290 miles on a full charge. The quad-motor Rivian R1T models we tested featured a 128.9-kWh battery and an EPA-estimated range of 314 miles. The first Launch Edition only made it 220 miles wearing 20-inch all-terrain tires, but the second wore 22-inch street tires and went 280 miles. The Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum is considerably less powerful than all the other trucks mentioned here, with its dual electric motors making a combined 580 horsepower. They’re fed by a 131.0-kWh battery that the EPA estimates is good for 300 mile of range. Wearing 22-inch street-oriented tires, Ford’s pickup made it 230 miles in our real-world range test.
Examining the Cybertruck’s HFE Result
Wheel sizes and tire compounds can have a significant positive or negative effect on an electric vehicle’s range. Since this group of trucks has a mix of all-season and all-terrain tires and various wheel diameters, their range results obviously aren’t a perfect apples-to-apples comparison. The Cybertruck’s aero-enhancing tonneau cover is also very beneficial, and it’s likely a key reason it did better than the F-150 Lightning and the Rivian on all-terrains. Still, the Tesla’s 20-inch Goodyear Wrangler Territory RT all-terrain tires definitely were a disadvantage versus the Lightning’s set of General Grabber HTS 60s, which are decidedly more range-friendly. Yet the Cybertruck still went 20 miles farther on a full charge.
The Cybertruck Beast’s real-world range result isn’t record-breaking by any means, as that figure falls in line with rivals that also feature the biggest battery and mightiest powertrain. It’s also uncommon for EVs we test to beat their EPA ratings. While the Cybertruck’s result was 51 miles short of Tesla’s estimate, that margin is actually smaller than the Ford’s 70-mile delta as well as the 94-mile difference we saw with the Rivian on more comparable all-terrain tires. The Hummer is the outlier, because even though it went 290 miles, its 205.0-kWh battery is so much bigger than the rest that it’s by far the least efficient, netting a paltry 1.4 miles per kilowatt-hour. Compare that with the Cybertruck, Lightning, and R1T we tested, which netted miles/kWh results of 2.0, 1.8, and between 1.7 (all-terrains) and 2.2 (street tires), respectively.
What did we learn? Well, the Cybertruck Beast is easily the most unorthodox truck we’ve ever tested (it’s the quickest too), but when it comes to range and efficiency, it’s not much different from all the other mainstream models. It’s also refreshing that Tesla’s estimated-range figure is realistic. While a set of less aggressive tires would likely decrease the Cybertruck’s off-road-punk aesthetic, they’d also likely increase its range. We won’t hold our breath for that change, though.
Eric Stafford’s automobile addiction began before he could walk, and it has fueled his passion to write news, reviews, and more for Car and Driver since 2016. His aspiration growing up was to become a millionaire with a Jay Leno–like car collection. Apparently, getting rich is harder than social-media influencers make it seem, so he avoided financial success entirely to become an automotive journalist and drive new cars for a living. After earning a journalism degree at Central Michigan University and working at a daily newspaper, the years of basically burning money on failed project cars and lemon-flavored jalopies finally paid off when Car and Driver hired him. His garage currently includes a 2010 Acura RDX, a manual ’97 Chevy Camaro Z/28, and a ’90 Honda CRX Si.