Few automotive sagas in modern memory have been quite as delightfully bizarre as the Tesla Cybertruck. Hyped to high heaven, fawned over by social media clout-chasers, and promised as the ultimate apocalyptic utility vehicle, it somehow transformed into one of the most glaring commercial duds in recent electric vehicle history.
The assembly lines at the Texas Gigafactory have been running at what can only be generously described as a symbolic pace, and even Elon Musk’s late hail-mary launch of a cheaper base trim couldn’t reverse its downward trajectory. Yet, if there is one sacred arena where stainless-steel absurdity yields to cold, unfeeling reality, it is the straight-line drag strip.
Case in point: a recent showdown at Mission Raceway Park in Mission, British Columbia. Rolling up to the lights was a satin black Ram 1500 TRX, armed with a 702-horsepower supercharged V8 and the undisputed crown among gas-powered muscle trucks. In the opposing lane stood a military green Cybertruck, almost certainly the triple-motor Cyberbeast, brimming with the kind of instant electric torque that makes internal combustion engineers want to cry into their coffee.
When the green light flashed, the Cybertruck erased the TRX’s reaction time like a mild inconvenience. The electric wedge crossed the quarter-mile beam in a staggering 11.12 seconds, leaving the roar of the supercharged Ram far behind at 12.63 seconds. On a drag strip, a gap of more than 1.5 seconds is an entire zip code. Making the blowout even sweeter was the total absence of professional launch control tricks or seasoned track veterans at the wheel.
Unfortunately for Stellantis, losing by a country mile hurts, but they aren’t taking it lying down. For the 2027 model year, the Ram TRX evolves into a 777-horsepower TRX SRT, accompanied by a street-focused Rumble Bee performance lineup meant to reclaim the throne.
Whether Tesla’s rolling doorstop can hold off an extra 75 supercharged horses remains to be seen. But for now, Tesla holds the ultimate automotive ironic prize: a truck that obliterates muscle cars on Sunday, yet struggles to leave the dealership lot on Monday.