--- title: "Cybertruck Tailgates Are Deforming After Doing Regular Truck Stuff" description: "Baby Elephant Cybertruck owners, beware of treating your truck like a truck! As first caught by Jalopnik, a Cybertruck owner going by the handle \"xhawk101\" took to the Cybertruck Owners Club forum on Friday to lament that his vehicle's stainless steel tailgate was deformed. Why? Because he tried to use the tailgate to haul stuff. You […]" date: "2024-08-15" modified: "2024-08-15" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/cybertruck-tailgates-deforming-regular-truck-stuff" categories: - "Advanced Transport" tags: - "cybertruck" - "tesla" - "the digest" --- # Cybertruck Tailgates Are Deforming After Doing Regular Truck Stuff ![Cybertruck owners, beware of treating your Tesla truck like a truck. You might just bend the tailgate out of shape.]() *\Image: Roy Rochlin via Getty / Futurism\* ## Truck Bed Elephant The evidence [keeps mounting]() that Tesla's plagued Cybertruck isn't very good at being a truck and doing average truck things. As [spotted by *Jalopnik*](), a Cybertruck owner [took to the Cybertruck Owners Club forum on Friday]() to lament that his vehicle's stainless steel tailgate was deformed. Why? Because he tried to use the tailgate to haul stuff. You know, run-of-the-mill [truck activities](). "Warning to everyone about hauling items," read xhawk101's cautionary message. "I made sure that the weight limit was not exceeded, however, since the load shifted, it obviously put too much weight on the tailgate and now the tailgate is warped." The Tesla owner added that the tailgate "fortunately still shuts," however the incident "clearly bent the stainless steel and it now has a gap." The owner was hauling a load of 12-foot composite decking boards. On [its website](), Tesla brags that its vehicle can hold a payload of 2,500 pounds — or, as the webpage also notes "equivalent of an average African elephant" — and that its "ultra-hard stainless-steel exoskeleton helps to reduce dents, damage and long-term corrosion." And yet, according to the owner, the truck was allegedly neither durable nor ultra-hard enough to withstand... a load of decking wood, highlighting [once again]() that Tesla has been majorly overselling the brawniness of its unorthodox and [highly unreliable]() pickup. ## Bent Out of Shape Instead of pointing the finger at Tesla's [infamously shoddy workmanship](), the owner is blaming himself. "Perhaps I should have known," they wrote, "but alas I was unaware of the potential." In a later comment, the Tesla owner conceded that boards "were as far in bed as possible until the truck accelerated" due to Tesla's traffic-aware cruise control. "I'm pretty sure when it lurched forward it shifted the load," they confessed. Still, we can't stress enough: these were composite decking boards, and these stainless steel monstrosities are supposed to be carrying around literal elephants. Besides, there are plenty of situations in which a driver might need to manually speed up or slow down, and sometimes abruptly. In short, it's reasonable to expect that a truck that can cost north of $100,000 and is allegedly "built for any planet" won't get deformed by some 12-foot deck planks and a slight shift in speed. **More on the Cybertruck:** [*Tesla Fan Climbs on Cybertruck to Show How Tough It Is, Accidentally Cracks Windshield*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()