Tesla Cybertruck battery capacity leaks as 123 kWh per showroom manager, worsening fears of mediocre range

When Tesla announced its electric pickup truck, CEO, Elon Musk, rattled off a laundry list of impressive features. Among those features and capabilities was a range of 500 miles (805 km). Now, four years later, and, on the eve of the first customer deliveries of the Cybertruck, that range figure is seeming more and more like a pipe dream.

In a recent video about a trip to the Tesla showroom in San Diego, California, YouTuber Tailosive EV reveals that the manager of the showroom disclosed the battery capacity of the Cybertruck as 123 kWh. It's unclear whether the Cybertruck in question was a base model or one of the tri-motor configurations that's supposed to be available at launch.

Tesla also seems to have kept the upper control arm design that bent somewhat worryingly during an off-road test a few weeks ago, revealing that the Cybertruck may not be quite as off-road-ready as Tesla lets on.

While there are still questions about the configuration, 123 kWh does not compare favourably to the Ford F-150 Lightning or Rivian R1T. The Rivian R1T is about the closest to the Cybertruck in terms of size, although it weighs slightly more than the supposed 6,670–6,890 lbs (3,025–3,125 kg) of the Cybertruck.

The R1T ships with three battery options — a 105 kWh battery with a claimed 270 miles (435 km) of range, as well as a 135 kWh and 180 149 kWh pack rated for 352 miles (566 km) and 410 miles (660 km), respectively. Those numbers are all valid for the more efficient dual-motor configuration, while the Cybertruck is alleged to launch on November 30 with at least a tri-motor configuration.

The Ford F-150 Lightning is supposedly slightly bigger than the Cybertruck, and it is available with a 98 kWh battery pack that delivers 230 miles (370 km) of range, or a 131 kWh battery pack that delivers 300 miles (483 km) of range. The F-150 Lightning, too, runs on a dual-motor configuration.

As is evidenced by those figures, quite a lot of the range equation has to do with motor efficiency and aerodynamics. While the Cybertruck almost certainly isn't the least aerodynamic vehicle on the road, test have put it far behind the R1T in terms of aerodynamics, so we can assume efficiency results closer to the F-150 Lightning's results. This makes a previous leak of 267 miles (430 km) of range on the Cybertruck seem like a fairly accurate, if conservative, prediction.

Other leaks have predicted that the Cybertruck would launch with as much as 350 miles (563 km) of range, which seems optimistic, given the aerodynamics analysis and this week's battery capacity leak.

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.

Edit for accuracy: the article originally claimed that the Rivian R1T Max battery pack had a capacity of 180 kWh. It has been corrected to reflect the accurate figure of 149 kWh.