There are many reasons to hate the Cybertruck. Looks, shoddy workmanship, flat out performance lies, Man-child business owner, etc…
But my biggest gripe, and this is the unpopular bit, is that in my opinion, it’s not actually a truck at all.
The Cybertruck is a uni-body construction, often called a “car chassis”. It shares that with the Honda Ridgeline, Hyundai Santa Cruz, and a few others. Trucks that are meant to do actual work use a body-on-frame construction because it has more ability to flex and twist when you put a heavy load in the bed or towing something heavy.
To put it simply, if you put a heavy enough load in the back of a uni-body truck, you’re going to lose some traction on the front wheels as the weight will tilt the entire body backwards, whereas real trucks made for work are developed with the bed mounted separately to avoid that issue.
I know that yes, Santa Cruz, Cybertruck, Ridgeline, etc… are still technically classified as a truck. But in my (unpopular) opinion, anything uni-body shouldn’t be classified as one.
Just to add… if the Cybertruck, Ridgeline, etc… are trucks, then so is the El Camino…technically. And that is certainly not true.
EL CAMINO!!!
The El Camino is a coupe utility vehicle, which is like a truck in the same way a three door hatchback is like a atation wagon. Kind of an midpoint between two other more distinct classes of vehicles.
Unibody trucks are still trucks if they can do general truck stuff like haul cargo in a bed and are generally shaped like a truck. They are definilty lighter duty though, which is fine and I wish coupe utility would make a comeback.
The cybertruck is just terrible at being a truck.
I would absolutely argue (and that’s kind of my point) that the Cybertruck…and ESPECIALLY the Santa Cruz is closer to a coupe utility vehicle rather than a truck.
If you can do truck things with it, it’s a truck. You can certainly do more truck things with a Ridgeline than a cybertruck and have it survive.