Tesla won’t fall by the wayside as electric trucks like the Hummer EV and Rivian R1T attract customers with special features. Elon Musk has revealed that Tesla is adding rear-wheel steering to the Cybertruck to aid the EV maneuver with “high agility”. In other words, it’s a rough answer to the Hummer’s “crab mode” and the R1T’s tank rotations. You might not have much of a problem with a tight U-turn or a tricky off-road scenario.
Musk also reiterated that the Cybertruck’s design “will be almost exactly what you saw when it launched in November 2019,” though he teased that there were plenty of “other great things” in the pipeline. The pickup should go into production at the end of 2021.
Rear-wheel steering may be necessary in practice. The Cybertruck is big even by truck standards – it might be hard to sell if it is difficult to get out of a parking lot. In addition, competitors like GMC, Rivian, and Ford are all launching electric trucks that may match, or sometimes exceed, Tesla’s feature set. The category has changed since the Cybertruck launch, and Tesla risks losing some business if it doesn’t update its technology.
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