The latest beta production builds of the Tesla Cybertruck were at Giga Texas this week for Investor Day, giving us a look at some never before seen features of the electric truck. Two features that have been seen before, the powered tonneau cover for the bed of the Cybertruck and it’s four-wheel steering were also spotted in action and shared by employees this week.
The original prototype of the Cybertruck back in 2019 had a powered tonneau cover. That particular cover rolled back and behind the rear window of the Cybertruck, a design which it later submitted a patent application for. You can watch it in this video.
That patent application also included solar cells embedded in the cover itself. Unfortunately no solar cells were spotted in this latest beta production build this week, but it appears as though the design has remained largely the same, although we can’t quite see where the cover folds away to in the video below. The material of the cover has also changed from the original prototype and is now more of a soft material than compared the metal of the original prototype cover.
It remains to be seen how this will perform in the real world and if it will be able to keep out dirt and rock out of the motorized rails. Rivian implemented a similar design in their R1T tonneau cover, but eventually had to pull it from their production lines due to high failure rates and redesign the whole thing, a process which is still underway.
https://twitter.com/DriveTeslaca/status/1631391326246961152
Also spotted by employees this week was the Cybertruck’s four-wheel steering. Unlike the tonneau cover this feature is something that wasn’t on the original prototype, with Elon Musk announcing in 2021 the Cybertruck would have four-wheel steering “so it can do tight turns and maneuver with high agility.”
We have seen the four-wheel steering in action before on previous prototypes, but seeing it in this latest beta production build this week is a good sign that it will make it into the final production version.
https://twitter.com/greggertruck/status/1631488507096240129
