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‘Five hours to reset a computer?’: Cybertruck owner says touchscreen broke after going to a car wash

Apparently it takes much longer for the car to reboot than promised.

Photo of Marlon Ettinger

Marlon Ettinger

Man talking(l+r), Tesla Cybertruck(c)

Two and a half months in and almost 3,400 miles down the road, a TikToker said that his Cybertruck crapped out after he took it to the beach.

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“The Cybertruck does not work anymore, @captian.ad claimed in a video posted on Monday.

@captian.ad

Cybertruck not working after 2 months 3400 miles #cybertruck #tesla #problem #recall

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The video shows him opening the front door to reveal the dashboard touchscreen is completely dead.

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“The manual recommends to reset the screen,” @captian.ad explained. To do that, you normally just hold down two buttons on each side of the steering wheel for 30 seconds until the screen resets and displays a Tesla logo.

But instead of that happening, the truck made a weird popping sound after a few seconds before the AC powered down. @captian.ad also said he heard some strange noises coming from the dashboard, but after waiting a good thirty seconds there was still nothing on the touchscreen. 

Meanwhile, the backseat screens looked like they were working fine.

According to @captian.ad, he’d been to the beach that day and washed sand out of the Cybertruck later at a car wash.

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“That’s the only thing I’ve done that’s different,” he said, wondering what the reason for the problem might be.

After a couple of minutes of the screen still not rebooting, he noted that if he presses the brakes the lights come on and the truck seems like it’s ready to drive.

“But what good is driving if you don’t know your speed, your rearview mirror, any info?” he asked. “You’re driving this thing blind.”

“I’m not driving it without any info,” he said. “It’s unsafe.”

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Cybertruck owners have been plagued with early kinks in the system as the trucks rolled out. Last week, customer forums started filling up with updates from the company that their deliveries would be delayed, with some customers speculating that the reason was problems with an accelerator pedal.

Tesla also recently laid off about 10% of its staff, with workers sharing stories about receiving the news by email.

Customers who bought the Cyberbeast, a premium edition of the vehicle that’s been rolled out early, also shared stories on social media about problems. One who posted on X about his issues at the beginning of April said he wasn’t able to get his truck going again after it broke down just 21 miles in.

Another logged five critical failures before driving 40 miles, making a YouTube video documenting his woes.

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In a follow-up video, @captian.ad said he’d talked with a service technician, praising the promptness of their support. In the morning the car was working, so he decided to take it to work.

“Quick update on the Cybertruck, or as many of you call it, the Tesla paperweight,” he said.

@captian.ad

Cybertruck not working after 2 months 3400 miles update #cybertruck #tesla #problem #recall #update

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The technician told him that there was a known issue with the Cybertruck where, when you do a screen reset, it takes five hours to reboot instead of the expected two minutes.

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The technician told him he’d log the issue as another complaint and said it would probably be fixed in the next software patch.

“Five hours to reset a computer though?” the bewildered TikToker asked. “And this is the new hardware.” 

“All I wanna know is: Where do I get that computer so I can take it to work,” he joked. “Sorry boss, I’m resetting my computer, I’ll get to that in a little bit.


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