The Cybertruck's Wheel Covers Are Tearing Up Its Tires

Yikes.

There's the Rubber

Tesla made a big splash with the unconventional design of its long-awaited and much-delayed Cybertruck.

One bold design choice of the final consumer version was the truck's tires and hexagonal wheel covers, which are meant to help the truck be more aerodynamic.

But as it turns out, those covers may hug the tire a little too closely, causing considerable wear on the rubber, as YouTube channel and Tesla customization shop Tsportline has found in a new video — and that's bound to sting, considering how long fans had to wait and how much money they paid for the truck.

Within Spec

As Electrek explains, the vehicle's brakes still need to be cooled with air, which forced Tesla to keep a small gap between the cover and the tire.

At first, the EV maker seems to have overshot the mark, with a cover dangerously flying off a Cybertruck while it was driving down a freeway, as spotted in a September video.

Now, Tsportline has found that in its effort to have the cover hug the wheel as closely as possible, Tesla may have misjudged the gap yet again.

When weight is applied to the tires, they bulge outward, causing the aero wheel cover's sharp edges to make contact with the tire.

Despite Tesla opting for rubber-tipped covers in an apparent effort to address the issue, Tsportline still noticed the "aero cover grinding away the sidewall of the tire" after the vehicle was driven a "couple thousand miles."

And now users on the Cybertruck Owners Club forum have also started noticing their vehicles were being shipped without covers.

"No explanation other than they would be sending a tech to install the caps on the 1st [of February]," one user wrote, adding that they received a message that Tesla is "investigating all the covers and they won’t be delivering the caps until March."

In short, it's a glaring design oversight that highlights the EV maker's struggle to bring the radical pickup to market and the compromises it had to make to get there.

It's certainly not a good look, especially given the truck's eye-popping price tag.

More on the truck: Cybertruck Drivers Reveal Terrible Range Over First 10,000 Miles