Six years ago, a coworker took Cheyenne resident TJ Doan for a ride in his Tesla. Within a week, Doan owned one of his own.
Doan works as an IT consultant with Western EcoSystems Technology Inc., but enjoyed driving his Tesla Model 3 so much that he began working as an Uber and Lyft driver on the weekends, just for the fun of driving around town in his electric car.
Now he has a Cybertruck for his rideshare gig, and he told Cowboy State Daily it’s a big hit with his riders.
Once they get in and experience riding in a Cybertruck for the first time, Doan’s riders almost always end their rides impressed. But he’s not popular with everyone. While out cruising, people who are anti-EV have been known to flip him off.
On The List
When Tesla started selling the Cybertruck, Doan put in an order for one. About 2 million people had the same idea, and he was about 600,000 on the list. He wasn’t too optimistic that he’d see his delivered anytime soon.
“I didn’t think I was ever going to get it, to be honest,” Doan said.
Then much to his surprise, on June 3 he got an email from Tesla saying his model was ready.
Doan had requested the elite version, called a Cyberbeast, but the email gave him the option to downgrade to the cheaper Cybertruck. After talking to his wife, Doan took the faster, more expensive option. It set him back about $120,000.
He was expecting it would be delivered to the Aurora, Colorado, Tesla store by fall, perhaps as late as December. Instead, he was notified at the end of July that his was ready for pickup.
He said what likely caused the early delivery is that many of those 2 million who paid a fee to order one lost interest or changed their minds and dropped off the list. Whatever the case, he couldn’t be happier.
A Head-Turner
Doan’s tri-motor Cyberbeast — it has three motors running the machine — is one of the foundation series, meaning it was one of the first Tesla produced.
As he sat in a parking lot near the Rib and Chop House in downtown Cheyenne recently, curious onlookers gawked at the oddly shaped vehicle. A few coworkers also came out to scope Doan’s new truck. He said kids especially get excited to see it.
“People are always staring at it because it looks like a trashcan,” Doan said.
However, not everyone in Cheyenne is impressed with the machine. Many Wyominites associated electric vehicles with the Biden administration’s climate agenda, and so they may assume that all EV drivers share the same politics.
“The other day I had a lady behind me. She was double flipping me off,” Doan said, raising the middle fingers of both hands up to demonstrate. “At first I thought I did something wrong, like cut her off. I don’t think I did anything wrong. So she must have been flipping the car off.”
Doan said he doesn’t support federal EV mandates, but even in a free market he believes the popularity of EVs would grow.
Beast Mode
He hasn’t had a lot of time to test the range of his Cybertruck, but according to the Tesla site, the vehicle gets a range of about 320 miles on a full charge. Doan said with the Tesla Superchargers, it takes about 30 to 40 minutes to charge from 20% to 80%.
Typically, EVs are only charged up to 80% because the last 20% can take as long, if not longer, than going from 20% to 80%.
However, when towing a heavy load, that range is cut by half.
“That’s the downside,” Doan said.
The vehicle has a few different modes depending on whether drivers want a smooth, comfortable ride or they want to gun it. Doan headed out on Happy Jack Road to show Cowboy State Daily what the Cyberbeast can do.
On a quiet side road, he brought up a screen on the computer that allows him to switch between modes. With a tap of his finger, he put the machine into “beast mode.” This allows for the fastest acceleration with the highest degree of stability.
Doan hit the gas — or specifically, the pedal formally known as a gas pedal — and in a couple seconds, the Cyberbeast was cruising at 60 mph. The effect of the g-forces pins riders to the seat and pulls the blood to the back of their head. The effect is almost dizzying.
No Uber
Doan started doing rideshares as soon as he got the Cyberbeast. This was during Cheyenne Frontier Days, so he had plenty of riders. He said he would have had a lot more riders, but Uber won’t let him use his Cybertruck, so he’s limited to just Lyft.
“It might be because of the insurance. Who knows?” Doan said. “Uber dominates the ride share in Cheyenne and I can't drive Uber, so I'm kind of screwed. I'm actually losing business. That kind of sucks.”
He said he made so much money doing rideshares with his Model 3 that it covered his payments. That’s not the case with the Cyberbeast. That’s partly because of the Cyberbeast is more than double the cost, but he’s also limited to Lyft.
The vehicle is so new, however, that Lyft doesn’t have an icon for the truck. Riders just see a generic icon of the vehicle headed their way. When he shows up in the Cyberbeast, riders get a first look at the vehicle they’ll be riding in.
They often have trouble figuring out how to open the door, Doan said.
One time, the Wyoming Highway Patrol pulled him over and Doan was convinced the cops just wanted to see the truck. He was happy to show them and even called his wife to tell her he was showing law enforcement his cool, new truck.
The cops told him that he didn’t keep his turn signal on long enough. They didn’t give him a ticket, but brought the drug dog around to sniff the vehicle. Then they let him go. When he told an ex-cop friend of his about the encounter, the friend said the cops were looking for drugs.
“He was like, ‘No, dude, they totally profiled you,’” Doan said.
He’s not sure why the cops thought he’d have drugs on him. Perhaps because the truck is so expensive, it’s the kind of thing drug dealers might buy.
“They did their thing, and then, OK, see you later. It was weird,” Doan said.
Cybergang
In Wyoming, there are about 1,080 EVs registered in the state, one of the lowest of all the 50 states.
Surprisingly, Doan said he’s not the only Cybertruck owner in Cheyenne. Whenever he pulls alongside a fellow Cybertruck owner, they roll down the windows and chat with each other. He’s met five other owners in town, and there may be more.
He’s got contact information for a couple of them. He wants to put together a Cybertruck club. His plan is that they all get together and go for a ride like bikers do. A line of Cybertrucks heading up the interstate, he expects, would get a lot of attention.
For now, he’s happy being one of the few Cybertruck owners in Cheyenne, and likely the only one doing rideshares with it.
