Elon Musk confirms Cybertruck door gap issue, at least 15 production units affected by poorly installed latch

As the Cybertruck gets into the hands of more average individuals and reviewers, more and more content about Tesla's electric pickup truck is starting to pop up online. While there have been those that point out the somewhat disappointing range and others that demonstrate dangerous oversights, Marques Brownlee recently reviewed the Cybertruck on YouTube and found quality control to be lacking.

Brownlee notes in the video that, during his almost 1,000 miles (ca. 1,609 km) with it, there have been “really big highs and lows” when it comes to the Cybertruck, but one of the first disappointing things he points out in the video is the driver-side front door. While fit and finish in Brownlee's Cybertruck is generally fairly good, by the looks of it, a production error led to a panel gap that the YouTuber calls “the worst I've ever seen in a production vehicle.” 

It was later discovered by one of Brownlee's producers, Miles Somerville, that the door striker had come loose — an issue he temporarily fixed with gaffer's tape, of all things. Elon Musk confirmed that the issue exists on “about 15 Cybertrucks,” in a post on X (formerly Twitter):

Not a “door fit” issue.

About 15 Cybertrucks in service had an issue where the door striker loosened in the field, due to insufficient torque after door fit.

This is takes 5 mins to fix in service and has been addressed in production. 

While it's comforting to know that Tesla has addressed the issue on its production lines, some commenters on Somerville's X post have argued that a truck that costs in the order of $100,000 should not have issues that require gaffer's tape to fix, and that Tesla's QC should have caught this before the 15 affected units were shipped to customers.

Previously, Notebookcheck reported on similar Cybertruck issues. In some instances, users were finding surface rust on their stainless steel body panels, and early Tesla Model 3 owners complained of similar quality control issues relating to panel gaps.

While the issues with the Model 3 were later addressed, with build quality improving in later units, this has not yet been the case with the Cybertruck, and Tesla is targetting similarly high volumes for the Cybertruck to the Model 3's sales.

Buy a Cybertruck 1/24 die-cast metal toy car on Amazon, or read about the Cybertruck's development in Walter Isaacson's biography of Elon Musk.