- Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk said that he is going to redo the Tesla Cybertruck and Ford F-150 test. A webcast may be done as early as next week.
Last week, Tesla Motors unveiled its upcoming electric pickup truck and it has hit more than 200,000 pre-orders in just a few days. And in a video promo video, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk posted a video of a Tesla Cybertruck pulling a Ford F-150 pickup truck uphill:
Cybertruck pulls F-150 uphill pic.twitter.com/OfaqUkrDI3
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2019
Immediately, a number of car enthusiasts started weighing in on why the Cybertruck had an unfair advantage in the video. One of the reasons why the video of a Tesla vehicle winning the tug-of-war contest was criticized is due to the heavier weight of the Cybertruck thus giving it a traction advantage.
“Electric vehicles are famously heavy – over both axles. It’s all about the weight borne by spinning tires. That’s the source of traction, not the engine power,” said astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. “We all love Torque. But high Torque just spins a tire in place if there’s not enough weight to provide traction. Fully load the F150, giving highest traction to its rear wheels, then try to drag that up the hill. I otherwise agree: Load both to the max and the highest torque wins.”
Musk agreed with Tyson and said that they will redo the test to make it fairer. Plus he said that a webcast will be done possibly as early as next week.
Ford Vice President of Ford X Sunny Madra also responded to the video by saying that Musk should send over a Cybertruck in order to an “apples to apples test”:
hey @elonmusk send us a cybertruck and we will do the apples to apples test for you 😉😉😉https://t.co/H3v6dCZeV5
— sunny madra (@sundeep) November 25, 2019
Musk replied to Madra by saying “Bring it on.”
FOX News reached out to Ford to see if Tesla reached out to the company to set up a competition.
“Sunny’s tweet was tongue in cheek to point out the absurdity of Tesla’s video, nothing more,” said a Ford spokesperson in response. “With America’s best-selling truck for 42 years, we’ve always focused on serving our truck customers regardless of what others say or do. We look forward to our all-new F-150 hybrid coming next year and all-electric F-150 in a few years.”
