A Tesla Cybertruck had to be rescued by other pickup trucks after falling off an off-road trail and getting stuck.
Tesla is trying to market the Cybertruck as an off-road capable vehicle. In terms of specs, the automaker delivered with an extremely responsive all-wheel-drive system and a suspension offering 12 inches of travel and 17 inches of ground clearance. But we have yet to see the pickup truck through some independent real-world testing.
On top of that, despite having started customer deliveries, Tesla is still testing the off-road capabilities of the Cybertruck itself.
A Tesla Cybertruck release candidate prototype was spotted on the Corral Hollow OHV trail up in Bear Valley, California:
The vehicle got stuck on the side of the trail and had to be rescued by other pickup trucks, as seen in the images above.
Top comment by Gene
Definitely the locking diffs were not locking here. If they were, they would have sent the power to the left wheels and the truck would have climbed out. I would have expected the lockers to be mechanical lockers, which would certainly work. They may be electric lockers and the software did not kick in. My guess is that since this is not a production vehicle, lockers may not have been installed at all, might simply be open diffs.
Generally in situations like these it is safer for the humans and the other trucks involved to air down the tires and prop up the slipping wheels with rocks, brush, whatever you have and allow the truck to make forward movement on its own. Snapping or slipping tow straps or chains will slap the pulling truck so hard as to do damage, and if a person is in the way, serious injury. When I worked in the Sahara, the company I worked with encouraged avoidance of tow straps except as last resort. In Baja, I was helping a truck out of a mudflat with a seriously high quality all fabric strap yet it did break. It hit the back of my truck taking out the rear window and a big dent in my tailgate. And please never ever use any strap with a metal hook on the end. It can kill a person.
Observers are speculating as to why the pickup couldn’t handle the task. The poster on Instagram, who got the images from a friend on the trail, said that a software issue led to the vehicle having no lockers.
There’s some snow on the ground, but not a significant amount, and the Cybertruck is equipped with off-road tires and AWD.
We recently learned that Tesla is deploying new software made for off-roading, including a new “Wade Mode” that pressurizes the battery pack to go into the water.
While the Cybertruck has interesting potential as an off-road vehicle, it looks like more independent testing is going to be needed before we can confirm that.
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