Look: Does the Tesla Cybertruck design affect pick-up abilities?

Los Angeles: The angular, polarizing design of the Cybertruck will help boost the Tesla brand, the electric vehicle maker's chief designer said on Thursday, adding that the pickup was no experiment.

The long-delayed Cybertruck starts at a price of $60,990, over 50 per cent more than what CEO Elon Musk had touted in 2019, with a smaller range than originally promised.

The company said the pickup can tow up to 11,000 pounds, more than a battery-powered Ford F-150 Lightning and some gas-powered F-150 models. The Cybertruck also boasts 17 inches of ground clearance, more than all versions of the F-150 and the electric Rivian R1T pickup.

But it is drawing interest from people who have never owned a truck, with some potential owners queuing up for it at some Tesla showrooms, von Holzhausen said.

In 2019, von Holzhausen threw a metal ball at the truck during at its launch event, shattering two of its fortified glass windows. At another an event last month where the first trucks were delivered, he lobbed a baseball at the windows without any damage.

"We're bringing people into the market that never would have owned a truck before," von Holzhausen said. "And so I don't think it's an experiment." The stainless-steel clad truck is all angles, in part because a traditional press can't bend the steel into curves.

The Lamborghini Countach, also an aggressively angular car, had also inspired the design, as had Lockheed's F-117 Stealth Fighter jet, von Holzhausen said. [Pictured: A 1976 Lamborghini Countach LP400 Periscopica]

Tesla claimed the Cybertruck will reach 60 miles per hour in as little as 2.6 seconds, and showed a video of the pickup crossing a quarter mile quicker than a Porsche 911 - while also pulling one of the sports cars on a trailer.