Tesla’s futuristic-looking Cybertruck has yet to officially launch but a few test versions have been spotted zipping along the freeways of California in recent weeks.
One such sighting included an extra surprise when one of the Cybertruck’s hubcaps came loose and flew into the air on the 101 freeway near San Francisco, according to Electrek.
A dashcam video (top) uploaded to YouTube on Sunday shows the all-electric Cybertruck up ahead in the second lane of fast-moving traffic. At the 10-second mark, you can see the hubcap launch into the air, going some distance before it comes crashing back down onto the fourth lane. The car in front of the dashcam vehicle then brakes sharply to avoid the Cybertruck hubcap but ends up driving over it. It then pops out from beneath the vehicle and rolls by the dashcam vehicle.
Given the way it flew off Tesla’s new Cybertruck, the outcome could’ve been a lot worse when it landed back on the freeway, as it’s impossible to know how a driver will react when it comes down in front of them or even lands on their vehicle while traveling at speed.
There are lots of reasons why a hubcap might fall off. It may have been poorly attached, with a bump in the road causing it to come off. It could also be that it’s poorly designed, unable to deal with a fast flow of air, but hopefully, that’s not what happened here.
Tesla certainly won’t want to be hearing about multiple hubcaps flying off its new electric pickup in the first days after release, so you can be certain that its engineers will be looking into what happened and putting things right — if indeed any work needs to be done.
Tesla is expected to announce a launch event for the Cybertruck any day now following comments by company CEO Elon Musk in April suggesting that the pickup would be handed to the first buyers in the third quarter of this year. However, it wouldn’t be the first time for Musk to miss a deadline, so we’ll just have to wait and see on this one.
In July, Tesla shared a photo showing the first Cybertruck to roll off the production line at Tesla’s Giga Texas facility in Austin, so we do know that everything is up and running at the factory. And just last month, Musk shared a photo of himself behind the wheel of a Cybertruck.
We’ll be sure to update here just as soon as word comes through of Tesla’s rollout event for its new Cybertruck pickup.
