Tesla's Bizarre New Cybertruck Trickery Is So Shady We Can't Believe It's Real

Oct 27, 2024

As if the Cybertruck wasn't enough of an eyesore already, Tesla is now selling huge, obnoxious light bars to be fitted onto its pickups.

There's just one small complication: these accessories are not only illegal to use on the road, but as Jalopnik reports, they're even illegal for Tesla to install.

But, call it clever or call it shady, Tesla has a workaround. As tech reviewer Marques Brownlee shared in a video about his experience, when he sent his Cybertruck to a Tesla dealership to get the add-on "installed," it only came back half-done.

Covered in black tape, the light bar was glued onto the top of the windshield. But none of the wiring was connected, so it wasn't fully installed. Instead, Tesla gave Brownlee the phone number and address of a local shop that could finish the job.

"So technically," Brownlee spells out, "Tesla didn't install the whole off-road light bar."

As anyone who lives in an area with a lot of pickup trucks and SUVs can tell you, light bars aren't uncommon accessories, even though it's illegal to use them on the streets in most states.

Some states even require that they're covered up while they're not being used. Naturally, many a red-blooded truck driver chooses to ignore these rules. Rules, apparently, are for people that don't drive seven thousand pound stainless steel coffins.

What's unusual, though, is for automakers to make and sell such an accessory themselves. But of course, Tesla is no ordinary automaker.

The irony is that the verdict's still out on whether the Cybertruck is any good at off-roading, which is the thing you would ostensibly be buying a light bar for. The number of hilarious attempts of Cybertruck owners trying to and failing would suggest that it's not — and so would its notoriously poor reliability, which evinces a not very rugged, let alone "Apocalypse-proof," vehicle.

But all in all, we suppose that Tesla selling add-ons that it can't even legally install is par for the course for the Cybertruck, which, reminder, is outright illegal in Europe.

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