See All 88 Photos It'sfinallyhere: the production Cybertruck. That (some) owners can actually buy. That will be driving on a street near you, perhaps. It's been a long, long, long road from the initial concept reveal to this point, and along the way—and in typical Tesla fashion—there's been a lot of talk about what the Cybertruck is, isn't, and could have been. Some features were promised, others teased, others floated. The Tesla Cybertruck is certainly something, but how does that something square with what we were promised? Let's dive into all the claims, including the outlandish and possibly facetious ones, to sort it out. 0:00 / 0:00 Can the Cybertruck Go 500 Miles on a Charge? At its reveal in 2019, Tesla promised the tri-motor Cybertruck—in top-flight three-motor trim—would achieve up to 500 miles of range, due in part to a special double-layer battery pack. That's certainly feasible; Tesla has notably efficient powertrains, and the heavy Rivian R1T is rated for 352 miles of range. To get to 500 miles, Tesla just needs to plug in the right amount of kWh. Possible? Yes. Feasible, practical, or desirable? Maybe not. Tesla has essentially admitted as much via the production Cybertruck's specifications, which list estimates for range at 250 miles for the entry-level, rear-drive model due in 2025; 340 miles for the all-wheel-drive version; and 320 miles in 845-hp, range-topping Cyberbeast trim. Curiously, Tesla's website for the Cybertruck lists different ranges for the all-wheel-drive model and Cyberbeast (which also is AWD) when equipped with a mysterious "range extender." This add-on, confirmed by a Tesla employee on X to be a toolbox-sized external add-on battery, ups the driving range to 470 miles on the AWD Cybertruck and 440 on the Cyberbeast. So, there is a right amount of extra kWh onboard, after all—and it (meaning that range extender) eats up a big chunk of the pickup bed. We do know the truck is capable of a so-so 250-kW charge rate, which is strange given it also was revealed to have an 800-volt electrical architecture. Competitors with that setup are capable of charging more quickly, at up to 350 kW, though Tesla says the truck can take on 128 to 136 miles of range in 15 minutes, depending on trim. No matter how you slice it, the Cybertruck's range estimates aren't anywhere close to what Tesla said they'd be in 2019 without that range extender, though they're competitive in 2023 against the likes of Rivian's R1T and Ford's F-150 Lightning. Alex Kierstein Like a lot of the other staffers here, Alex Kierstein took the hard way to get to car writing. Although he always loved cars, he wasn’t sure a career in automotive media could possibly pan out. So, after an undergraduate degree in English at the University of Washington, he headed to law school. To be clear, it sucked. After a lot of false starts, and with little else to lose, he got a job at Turn 10 Studios supporting the Forza 4 and Forza Horizon 1 launches. The friendships made there led to a job at a major automotive publication in Michigan, and after a few years to MotorTrend. He lives in the Seattle area with a small but scruffy fleet of great vehicles, including a V-8 4Runner and a C5 Corvette, and he also dabbles in scruffy vintage watches and film cameras.