How expensive is it to repair a Tesla Cybertruck? It’s a complicated question, but we now have at least one answer. That’s all thanks to automotive outlet Edmunds, which has shared the woeful tale of the crash that took out their very own Cybertruck.
Much controversy has raged over whether modern vehicles like these are feasible to repair or not. A lot was made a couple of years ago about the $42,000 needed to repair a minor fender-bender with a Rivian. Much of this comes down to the heavy use of aluminum casting and innovative construction techniques. The Cybertruck is an even more unique case, thanks to its reliance on panels made out of a bespoke stainless steel alloy that is quite unlike anything else on the market.
Anecdotes aren’t data, per se, but the Edmunds story is an enlightening one. The outlet has explained in full detail just what happened when their long-term Cybertruck tester was hit last year. It’s sobering reading—whether you own a Cybertruck, or were thinking about buying one.
Edmunds is a big player in the automotive media space. Rather than simply taking on review cars from automakers, the outlet sometimes elects to purchase vehicles outright to perform extended long-term reviews. Last July, Edmunds published a story outlining its new Tesla Cybertruck, which came in at a total price of $101,985. It had secured a Foundation Series model with the twin-motor drivetrain, good for 600 horsepower. It was intended that the pointy truck would go through a full one-year road test program. Sadly, that would not come to pass.
Problems with the Cybertruck came thick and fast. It suffered through an initial bout of steering issues, which were not uncommon for launch models, and then continued to fail as the months rolled by. Before the outlet could even take the truck off-road or perform any real testing, it ended up the victim of somebody else’s crash. In December last year, the parked Cybertruck was hit by a small sedan on the driver’s side, impacting the rear wheel and bumper. The crash left the Cybertruck pushed up on to the curb, with serious damage. Beyond the exterior panels and the rear wheel, the chassis structures underneath had taken a hard hit, and the rear axle was broken, too.
Had the Cybertruck been a regular vehicle, Edmunds may have been able to drop it off at any old body shop. Instead, the stainless steel truck had to go to a Tesla shop that was specially prepared to handle the vehicle. At the time, only two existed within 50 miles of Los Angeles. It took two months to get an appointment, but eventually, the beleaguered truck was seen to by the professionals.
It cost a total of $1,128 just to inspect the vehicle, and the repair quote that followed was even less pretty. The shop wanted $57,879.89 to put the Cybertruck right. This compared poorly to the value of the vehicle, which stood at $86,160 in its pre-crash condition. That was enough to mark it a total loss. The Cybertruck would be written off.
The simple fact is that the Cybertruck took extensive damage in the accident. As per the eight-page repair estimate, it needed a lot of work. Highlights include line items for new rear suspension ($9,149), a new rear motor and supporting components ($4,191), and a new rear bed ($8,762, including $4,280 for the rear aluminum section). There’s a full breakdown in the Edmunds article, which includes $16,584 in labor costs and $3,320 in tax to boot. Fixing the Cybertruck, was—in this case—simply too expensive to consider.
Thus, the eventual fate of the Edmunds Cybertruck was confirmed. The battered remains were sent off to Copart for $8,000. An inauspicious end to what was a six-figure truck just a few months before. It sets a new record for Edmunds in terms of losses on a long-term car—a credit which formerly belonged to the Fisker Ocean, which plummeted in value from $70,000 to $13,000 in just one year.
It bears noting that a single anecdote is not data. There are Cybertrucks which have been involved in smaller crashes, and they’ve undoubtedly ended up back on the road with less than five figures spent on repairs. At the same time, you could be forgiven for looking at the Edmunds truck and assuming it was recoverable. Most of the panels were still straight, and it overall didn’t look that bad. And yet, all it took was one misplaced compact sedan to render this totem of steel into a 6,000-pound paperweight.
Image credits: Edmunds (supplied)
Interesting thing I’ve been seeing regarding these now that they’ve been out for a while: Because of the fact that the body panels are straight pressed, almost every single first year Cybertruck now has body panels that resemble the sides of a cheap covered aluminum box trailer. All warped wavy and dented. I suspect that the roughness of the road along with daily stresses like opening and closing doors are doing this.
It’s like the stupid things can’t even drive over gravel without breaking out into hives.
The only data I want to know is the honest percentage of repaired vs. totaled for electric vehicles. We’ll never get the honest answer from big insurance, but I would bet a car from my driveway that the % is a single digit. They simply refuse to be liable for potential battery pack damage that either leads to a fire, or a loss in range requiring a pack replacement. It’s cheaper for them to pay the (“depreciated” = Low) value of the vehicle and move on.
And all costs inevitably are passed on to consumers 🙁
Owner of small sedan shitting their pants with their $25,000 liability coverage.
I expect there are going to be insane home builds soon based on CT powertrains.
I’m just spit balling here, but the suspension and portal axles of a surplus HMMV, the motors and battery of a CT and a tube chassis would make a hell of a rock climber.
If home built things from scrapped Cybertrucks becomes a thing, someone will make a small business out of providing software solutions to whatever crazy hardware ideas people come up with.
Once the insurance companies come to their senses they will price the insurance so high it will make owning one impossible or at least unappealing for a lot of people.
There were stories of insurance companies refusing to insure these things when they first came out.
I would expect rates to go up once there’s enough data from actual claims for the companies to evaluate.
That’s going to happen for nearly all EVs, especially as ‘giga-casting’ becomes more commonplace.
The stainless body is 0/2 on long term success for the same reason. I really hope it’s another 40 years before some idiot has another date with the good idea fairy.
Came for the comment, was not disappointed
Looks like a great project vehicle. Maybe make it into a new version of the Geoffrey.
These things are as fragile as the snowflakes who drive them.
Good symbol for Tesla, great idea but not executed well or only good enough for marketing
Of course a $100,000+ vehicle will be expensive to fix. But when I look at the list of stuff that needs fixing, given the nature of the collision, there is some stuff on the repair list that suggests to me that the repair quote is seriously padded with unnecessary shit.
I have a hard time believing that it needs “$610 Paint and material”, $16,000 in labour (what exactly is their shop rate… $1000/hr???) and new rear motors.
I bet if this was taken to the Electrified Garage and had Rich Benoit (“Rich Rebuilds”) have a look at it, I’m guessing they would find a lot of unnecessary bullshit in that repair estimate.
Edmunds is trying to mimic the experience of a regular consumer.
They sure are, and the regular customer is held over the coals, so I think it’s still apt to point out that regular customers get hosed when they’re told they can only take their car to one place.
I bet if you ran that sedan into a Ferrari, Lambo, or other Super car you’d get a similar estimate figure. Just too much trouble to fix and never get right so force a write off.
If Ferrari or Lambo sold me a car advertised as bullet- and apocalypse-proof and would be the “winner” of any collision, I’d pretty pretty mad if my car got totaled while parked. Also, this Cybertruck cost less than a BMW 7 series these days. It’s not supercar money – it’s basically Ram TRX money. The cheapest Ferarri now on sale costs roughly 2.5 times what Edmunds paid for their Founders vehicle.
I’d be interested to know what the repair bill would have been in Texas or Tennessee. Operating costs in CA are so incredibly high I wonder if it would have saved money to ship it to a different state for repairs.
I suppose that’s possible or even likely, but the article says it went to a Tesla shop. If the Tesla shop is going to do overly expensive and wholly unnecessary stuff to a crashed Cybertruck belonging to Edmunds, they’ll probably do it to that gigantic toolbag Jerry down the street who bought one too, right? If it’s part of the ownership experience, I’m glad the publication said it was part of their experience.
If you call body shops, they get paid $XX/hour by insurance companies for a regular vehicle. If it’s a Tesla, it goes to a certified Tesla shop and they charge $125-150/hour, non-negotiable.
The paint and materials is likely for the black textured parts, flex additives and haz-mat fees and all the other associated stuff. Not a surprise.
I’m no fan of the cybertruck.
But this particular type of accident would total almost anything on the road today.
It’s not surprising but funny they go around saying how tough they are. That heavy d got one from someone early on and started modifying it they ran into many parts fails. It was pretty clear from then on it wasn’t what it claimed to be. It’s also curious how many blunders they threw in this one vehicle. GM tried aluminum in the 80s and backed off of course there were many woes from the stainless delorean. When Ford brought out alimibodys alot of the old guys that learned aluminum for the 80s GM cars were teaching the younger guys from for the Ford trucks. But they don’t know stainless unless for some reason they have a marine welder or someone that worked in a different industry. I’ve seen small cars run into ram trucks and do nothing but a small scratch totaled car I’ve also seen ram trucks run over small cars not doing any damage to the truck totaled car.
Heavy D the rapper?
The overweight lover’s in the house!
Diesel guy in Utah former Mormon? Could be rapper too no idea. Used to have a show on Discovery.
Also, an apt metaphor for the fragility of some people from a certain political party?
Although, that risks ignoring a certain measure of fragility on the other side as well. Some of which might have contributed to the current divide. Just thinking out loud here. Not making any grand points.
The crash really improved the looks.
“It bears noting that a single anecdote is not data”
Yup, that would a datum.
A drunk driver in a small Chrysler plowed into the back of my parked Nissan Frontier. The damage? A bent rear bumper. I didn’t even bother to get it repaired. That a similar accident can total a $100,000 truck is beyond ridiculous.
This Edmunds experience seems to closely mirror the investment returns Musky will get from the CT. Awwwwww
Couldn’t happen to a nicer despot
All of these issues (from technical woe to repair costs) seem like even more good reasons not to buy one of these fash-funding turds.
I’m still baffled as to why they picked up this flop as a year-long test car after most of the insufferable influencers and Elon’s fanboiz bought theirs and the brand went toxic, but thanks for the cautionary tale, I guess. Giving money to one of the worst influences on modern society isn’t worth it for practical reasons, either!
But what if…Elon Musk hadn’t joined forces with President Trump? Would THAT be enough to “justify” buying one of his products?
I mean, he still gave a boatload to get Trump elected, keeps funding democracy-distorting stunts like those giveaways to vote and shadowy overfunded PACs, routinely amplifies toxic hard-right movements and parties both at home and abroad, and RTs actual neo-nazis on Twitter.
If he hadn’t fallen down a 4chan-brained rabbit hole, well, he’s still got a history of dishonesty about everything from the self-driving abilities of his camera-only Autopilot and (Not Actually) Full Self-Driving systems to the timelines, prices and specs of upcoming products, his products are becoming less competitive as other companies catch up with EVs, and he’s gotten distracted by puppeted-at-launch robots and his impractical, behind-the-times “Cybercab” idea. Car company, man. You make cars? Remember? Why are these less plausible, harder to pull off ideas taking precedence over a mass-market Model 2 that has a better shot of funding the moonshots?
So, at this point? Not really. Even if he decided to pivot back to inoffensive political views and start using his wealth for good tomorrow, I’d still recommend an EV with an easier-to-use interior with fewer controls shoved onto one big screen. I won’t pretend that cars like the Model S and Model 3 aren’t fun to drive and didn’t have a sizeable impact in widening the appeal of EVs, but the world is moving on and Tesla’s been asleep at the wheel when it comes to the more mainstream models. I keep saying it’s a brilliant company in need of an adult who actually wants to lead it, and I stand by that take. Until Elon’s out of the picture, I genuinely think it’ll continue to land in that “they should be doing so much better at all of thls” purgatory.
(The big metal finger-eater is just a non-starter all-around, though. Too compromised, too bulky, simply not functional enough.)
Well, when you put it that way…
Not responding directly to you, but your rhetorial question would seem to make this “response” apropos.
Anyway, I think we all need to remember that Elon has (publicly) been an insufferable prick since long before his DOGE/MAGA adventures.
In 2018 he called the guy, who was helping to rescue Thai children from a cave, a pedophile… because he had the audacity to call out one of Elon’s PR stunts. We’ve all known, we’ve just chosen to ignore. Gotta admit, I was still tempted to hop into a Model 3 even after the “pedo” comments. But no more. I’ll never touch a Tesla product (did I just doom myself to one day driving a Tesla? hope not).
The pedo guy comments were the start of me jumping off the Musk bandwagon. Up until then I thought he was a quirky rich guy doing some good stuff, but after that incident I started noticing a lot more evil rich guy stuff. Maybe it was there all along, but either way I pretty quickly turned from fanboy to detractor.
Not sure I agree with you on the we’ve all known but we’ve chosen to ignore statement. Pretty sure a day doesn’t go by where it isn’t raised
D’oh — on second thought, I mixed up Edmunds’ Cybertruck purchase timing with their latest Model Y purchase. I guess they were still in the influencer/fanboy wave with the CT purchase after all, but it’s still such a niche product and Elon’s antics were well on their way to poisoning the brand at that point.
It’s always so weird to see a facelifted Model Y driving around – especially in Canada. It makes a statement but it’s not a statement you want to make.
Oh gosh, I can imagine up there.
I think it made sense at the time the reservations were announced, and then momentum took hold…