Obtaining a Christmas tree can be one of the most enojoyable holiday activities you can do. The driver of this Tesla Cybertruck seems to have wanted in on the fun, but got stuck in a snowy field on the way out. Ironically, it was a pair of gas-powered Ford pickup trucks that had to come to the rescue.
This scene happened on the Corral Hollow OHV Trail, which is a 13.9-mile route near Kit Carson, California, that goes through the Stanislaus National Forest. It’s a “moderately challenging route,” according to All Trails. The videos below show a Cybertruck struggling to get out of a muddy rut, before cutting to the stainless-steel-bodied truck back on the road, connected via rope to a Ford Super Duty.
The prominent “RC” on the side of this Cybertruck identifies this as a Release Candidate version of the pickup. This is Tesla’s fancy way of naming a pre-production model, so it’s possible this truck didn’t have all of the capabilities you’d see on a production model.
The Instagram post shows the truck has “no lockers due to software issues,” However, the clip doesn’t confirm this because we only see the passenger-side front wheel spinning. The production-spec Cybertruck is available with a locking differential at the nose. The torque-vectoring dual motors at the back mean a traditional differential isn’t necessary back there.
Matt Chambers, who posted the video to Instagram (above), told Motor1 that the Tesla driver was doing winter testing. A software problem caused the traction control not to work.
This Cybertruck also didn’t have recovery points and “needed to be gently pulled by suspension components,” Chambers said. However, the production-spec Tesla pickup has hooks on each side of the lower fascia.
While it’s not mentioned in the Instagram post, the second video provides a decent view of the Tesla’s tires, which appear to be all-season rubber. They’ve got some tread but not enough for these conditions. Given the uphill grade and slippery snow, the Cybertruck’s off-road tech isn’t going to help if the tires can’t get a grip on the ground.
Judging from the dirt visible at the beginning of the first video, the Cybertruck driver spent a while spinning the pickup’s tires before the other drivers came to the rescue. He also went pretty far off the trail.
This seems like more of a case of an over-confident Cybertruck driver than an issue with the Tesla. With the wrong tires, even the Ford Super Duty that was rescuing the Tesla might have problems if the situation were reversed.
