Tesla just gave us our first official look at the Cybertruck going off-road during the company's latest earnings report, and it shows a muddy electric truck and an equally dirty windshield. The comically large singular wiper blade appears to struggle.
A big topic of discussion for the Cybertruck is the massive windshield and the wiper blade designed to keep it clean. Tesla's CEO Elon Musk previously mentioned that there's "no easy solution" for the large glass and even suggested lasers a few years back.
Inside the earnings report, Tesla released photos titled "Built to do real work," with the Cybertruck going off the pavement and into the rugged outdoors. As you can see from the image above, that gigantic window isn't easy to keep clean, and the chunky wiper blade isn't doing a good job. In fact, the mud smeared so much I doubt the driver could see, and it only wiped away about half of the passenger side. Yikes.
It is worth noting that the glass windshield extends far above a passenger's head, more than most vehicles, so if that lone wiper blade gets high enough, it shouldn't be a problem. Sure, this isn't a typical scenario. Still, it doesn't bode well for Tesla, and already has the internet and users on Reddit talking.
As production has inched closer to a release, we've seen a few new windshield wiper designs, but none are that great. Unfortunately, at least for now, it appears that Tesla has settled on the sizeable singular blade we've seen in recent leaks.
Most vehicles have dual windshield wipers placed at the top of the hood, which overlap and do an excellent job keeping the glass free and clear of mud, dirt, debris, and water.
For whatever reason, Tesla isn't taking that route and instead mounted the massive single blade along the vertical edge of the driver's side windshield. When activated, it folds down and does its best to get the entire window, but without a second wiper to overlap, it's missing quite a bit of the glass.
In mid-July, Tesla celebrated by completing its first production-ready Cybertruck at its Giga Texas factory. And while that's only a "release candidate" unit, all signs point to this windshield wiper design being final as production moves ahead. The vehicle is still on track for a Q3 arrival.
via Business Insider