Kia Stonic vs Tesla Cybertruck

What's the difference?

Unlike a lot of rivals in this segment, the Stonic's actually quite a bit of fun to drive, and that alone earns it a tick from me.

Yes, it can feel underpowered in places, especially when you're trying to do high-speed overtakes or if you're on a really engaging road and on and off the accelerator. But just cruising around, the little powertrain gives you plenty to get around the city.

And I guess that is the point. This does feel like a very city-friendly vehicle, even if it is undeniably showing its age in places.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer with meals provided.

Note: The author, Andrew Chesterton, is a co-owner of Smart As Media, a content agency and media distribution service with a number automotive brands among its clients. When producing content for CarsGuide, he does so in accordance with the CarsGuide Editorial Guidelines and Code of Ethics (https://www.carsguide.com.au/ethics), and the views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

Weird, wild, unnecessary, arguably horrific to look at, or at least challenging, too fast, too silly, the Cybertruck is many things, but all of the bad things are obvious from a distance while you only realise just how impressive, clever and intense it is once you take it for a drive.

The drive-by-wire steering alone is a revolutionary bit of tech that will surely bleed into the wider world. 

Overall I thought I would hate it, but I walked away, head still shaking, with grudging respect approaching admiration for the Tesla Cybertruck.

I'm not gonna spend too much time on the exterior design, because from most angles it largely looks a lot like a Kia Stonic, right? The big exterior change occurred up front, where the old Kia 'face' was retired, and replaced with an LED-trimmed front-end more in keeping with modern Kia models.

It is a tale of good and bad in the cabin of the Stonic. The good is the fact that it all feels very familiar and very Kia, which isn't a bad thing.

Th bad is some of the door materials aren't just cheap and hard plastic, but they feel a bit flimsy in places as well. Same with the centre console plastics. There are some elements where you could definitely lift up the ambience in the interior.

Is there anything interesting about a Narwhal, or a rhinoceros? It’s hard to know whether to give the Tesla Cybertruck 10 out of 10 for how interesting its design is, or zero for how offensive it is, but it would certainly get a solid 20 out of 10 for uniqueness.

Sure, in pictures it looks pretty out there, but when you stand before it in all its shiny steel it makes you laugh out loud, to the point where it has taken your breath away.

And then you start to notice all the fingerprints on it. Every time you - or any of its many admirers - touches it, you get nasty, oily stains and keeping it clean would make looking after a car painted in a matte finish look as easy as sleeping. 

So, stainless steel as a choice for constructing a car? Perhaps there’s a reason no one else has ever followed the DeLorean’s lead here, but there’s no denying it grabs your eye, and provides a certain solidity to the whole structure.

Much like a Frank Gehry building, you’re either going to love the Cybertruck and think it a work of modern art, or dismiss it as a childish man’s fantasy made real (essentially that was the design brief for this vehicle, “make Elon a toy”, and it has nailed that brief), but either way you’ll definitely have strong feelings about it.

A car, or even a pick-up truck, with no round surfaces, nor subtlety of any kind, can’t really be described as beautiful in any way. But interesting? Definitely. 

In the GT-Line trim, you get the twin screen setup, which looks sharp, and I do like Kia's multi-function control bar, which takes care of things like navigation and media on the one digital screen.

It really is feeling a little bit old school in places. There's no wireless phone mirroring, for example, so you need to plug in. And even then you need to plug in with a USB-A rather than a USB-C, despite having both plugs at your disposal.

The other thing is that the GT-Line is almost $36k before on-road costs. And there are places where it just doesn't feel like that much money.

It's a case of what you see is what you get in the back seat of the Stonic. And what you see is... not that much.

There are two USB-C ports in the more expensive trims. There are bottle holders in each of the doors, but no cup holders, and no pull-down seat divider. It is a fairly sparse back seat experience.

What you do get, however, is the luxury of space. Sitting behind my own 175cm driving position, I had absolutely no problem with knee room and no problem with head room. In fact, even as an almost full-size adult, I reckon I could sit back there pretty comfortably, even on longer road trips.

The big news is the addition of a 48-volt mild hybrid system, and that 48-volt battery is under the boot floor. But because it's hidden under a flat partition, it actually doesn't impact boot space.

Kia is still claiming 352 litres with the rear seats in place and 1155 litres with the rear seats folded flat. You do, however, miss out on some under-boot storage. And there's no spare wheel to speak of, just a tyre repair kit.

While the front and rear seats feel plenty spacious, that odd peaked baseball cap roof is a bit challenging in terms of headroom, and I smashed my noggin into it a few times trying to reach into the back seat for more Oreos and Mountain Dew. 

You can pop up the bench seat in the back to create even more space for storage, or to provide a flat floor to sleep on.

You can also lie an American sized pizza box on the vast swathe of dash between you and the wildly angled windscreen, there’s plenty more storage on the floor between you and the passenger and then more storage bins at your hip, as well. A wireless phone charger sits twinned with the spot where you park your Tesla card key.

It’s a practical, semi-rugged feeling space, but with the usual kind of Tesla less is more feeling, except when it comes to the screen, which is stupidly large and requires far too much input when you’re driving to be safe. And there’s still no speedometer where you need one, in front of your eyes, and no head-up display, despite Tesla’s love of other jet-fighter tech, like drive-by-wire steering.

How does one define value when it comes to the vehicular equivalent of a cockroach, one that seems capable of surviving the apocalypse with it indestructible (but possibly slightly rusty in appearance) stainless-steel exterior, HEPA filters (will protect you from pollution, pollen and “industrial fallout”) and (almost, kind of) bowling-ball proof super-strong windows (it can allegedly survive the impact of a baseball at 112km/h - handy if someone is trying to kill you with a baseball)?

And what price can you put on the kind of attention driving a Cybertruck gets you? Perhaps only a Bugatti or a Pagani could match the level of wide-eyed, slack-jawed excitement you see from other people when you drive this thing around. 

Then there’s the fact that it accelerates like an actual rocket, is allegedly so cosseted in the cabin that it’s “as quiet as outer space” (this is a comparison test I am up for, if Elon’s Space X would like to arrange it), and can tow “an average African elephant”, or 4,990kg, and has a 1134kg capacity in that vast rear tray, covered by a standard, automatic tonneau cover that’s so tough you can stand on it.

In that rear tray you’ll find a bottle opener, and some storage tubs with drainage holes to keep your beer cold or your fish frozen. You could sleep in there, on the composite bed, which is tough you don’t need a liner, but why would you when you can sleep in the truck - the dash is so large you could comfortably lie under the windscreen to sun yourself - using 'Sleep Mode', which runs the air con all night from its giant battery to keep it at your set temperature.

Speaking of your battery, you can also charge things with it using the integrated power outlets, and that includes the ability to charge another Tesla, or to re-zap your Tesla Powerwall at home and run your house during a blackout. Or the Apocalypse.

Tesla has put a price on all this, of course, and in America it ranges from US$81,895 to US$101,985. Frankly, that seems like quite good value when you add it all up, or at least it would if the Cybertruck really could tow five tonnes further than the end of the street, and if range - surely something of an issue for an outdoorsy vehicle like this - really could be guaranteed at 547km.

If and when it gets to Australia, of course, its value will need to be reassessed on what is sure to be a much, much larger number.

All Stonics get the same powertrain. A clever three-cylinder, 1.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine with 48-volt mild hybrid assistance. That means 88kW and 172Nm (up from 74kW). It has a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission.

We don’t have an official zero-to-100km/h time, but I’m estimating in excess of 10 seconds.

Yes, I’m giving it 10. Because how could you want for more than a torque figure of 13959Nm, and a Ferrari-humbling 630kW of power to boot?

The Cybertruck is the perfect example of Elon Musk’s approach to what we’ll call science, or Twitter, or X. If it can be done, just do it, don’t ask whether it’s a good idea, or batshit insane.

So because he could fit a vast 123kWh battery and two crazy powerful motors to this pick up monster, and that could provide enough grunt to send three tonnes of mass to 100km/h in 2.8 seconds, they did. 

Is it wise? Probably not. Is it wild and almost, somehow, strangely admirable? Yep.

The 48-volt system helps drop both fuel use and C02 emissions, with the Stonic pegged at 5.0L/100kms on the combined cycle and 116g/km for emissions, both of which are lower numbers than the last model.

The Stonic’s 45-litre tank could theoretically deliver a circa-900km driving range.

Tesla claims a range of 547km between charges and that even when towing something of “reasonable size” (a smaller Tesla perhaps) it will still get 400km. I, for one, very much doubt that.

Tesla also claims you can recover up to 235km of range with just 15 minutes of Tesla Supercharging, while a charge from 10 to 80 per cent on that same Supercharger would take 44 minutes. On a 110V American plug it would take 110 hours, or 4.5 days, to fully charge from zero to 100 per cent.

It is a really interesting drive proposition, this Stonic.

First and foremost, it does feel really well sorted in places. The steering has a nice weight to it. It's nice and direct. The ride is comfortable. It can get a little bit crashy over the harsher bumps, which actually isn't all that common in Kia products – like if you hit a cat's eye at speed, for example, you can definitely feel it in the cabin – but generally it's an engaged and comfortable drive.

Similarly, going around corners, even at speed, there's not a huge amount of body roll. The tires grip up pretty well, and it's really not a bad thing to throw around corners.

Where it gets interesting, though, is in its power delivery. At city speeds, so 50 or 60km/h, it's nice and easy and quiet. If you're gentle with the accelerator, and patient, it accrues speed in quite a calm, considered manner, without feeling overly sluggish.

Where it does start to fall apart a little bit, which is when you're at speed, say on a freeway for example, and you pull out to overtake and really plant your foot, and find there's really not a lot there. It can mean overtaking takes a lot longer than you might think. 

If you're on a really challenging road and you're kind of on the gas, on the brakes, on the gas and on the brakes, it can feel a little bit wheezy and uncertain, too, which is no doubt a byproduct of that relatively tiny powertrain.

We're definitely not talking rocket ship acceleration, and nor is it all that quiet in the cabin when you really start to wring its neck, which you will do occasionally.

But I think I've really stepped away from what this vehicle is supposed to be and what it's supposed to do. If you are easy with the accelerator, it can be a really calm, quiet cabin experience. And if you do find yourself on a twisting road, it actually sits and grips better than you might be thinking as well.

But there is no doubt the Stonic shines brightest in the city.

It’s fair to say the Tesla Cybertruck is an intimidating prospect in the metal. It towers over you and seems to stretch into forever, because it does, at 5.68m long (too long to fit in a standard Australian parking space). 

It’s also a full 2.0m wide, 1.8m tall and weighs 3.1 tonnes, but along with its size comes the fact that it just doesn’t look… right. There’s not a round surface on it but there are plenty you could cut yourself with, or lose a finger in.

It’s no less weird inside, as the giant A-pillars, vast dash, crazy yoke steering device and graphically lovely screen confront you, making it feel like you might be on the Starship Troopers ride at Universal Studios rather than in an LA car park.

Then, while you’re getting used to this and having a good laugh at the Easter egg on the touch screen (smash the windows on the graphic of the car with your finger and you hear the sound of Elon freaking out at the infamous failure demonstration of its unbreakable glass), you’re warned that it is going to be almost as weird to drive as it looks.

This is, in part, due to the Cybertruck’s unique drive-by-wire steering - a technology previously popular only with jet fighters and other planes - which allows it to have a yoke instead of a steering wheel without being annoying, because your hands will never cross over and be left grasping air.

Yes, the Infiniti Q50 debuted with 'steer-by-wire' a decade ago, but featured a full mechanical system as a fail-safe back-up. No mechanical safety net here.

The Cybertruck has less than one full turn lock-to-lock, and it has not just passive but aggressive rear wheel steering, allowing the back wheels to turn the opposite direction to the front ones at parking speeds, quite radically, which, once you’re used to it, makes it much easier to park than seems possible. 

It also makes this Tesla incredibly sharp and direct and means that, for the first few minutes of driving it you will turn the wheel, sorry, yoke, far more than necessary.

Once you get used to it, however, it is fabulous, as long as you don’t think about what would happen if the software that’s the only thing connecting you to the wheels - rather than actual moving parts - failed. 

The steering makes the Cybertruck shrink around you to the point where you forget, at times, just how big it is. Combined with the low centre of gravity and the bank vault solidity of the chassis, it also makes it turn-in and handle like a much smaller sports car (and it has a turning circle that defies belief, one that’s sharper than some sedans).

Speaking of sports cars, most of them won’t keep up with the Cybertruck if there’s someone brave in its driving seat. Indeed, you’d need a proper hypercar to match its constant, surging torque (no, I don’t believe it can really have 13,000-plus Newtons, but it’s a lot), and its purely outrageous, surging speed.

Tesla has a habit of calculating torque at the wheels, not the motor(s) and gearing reductions increase torque markedly. 

Yes, I do believe it would do 0 to 100km/h in three seconds, maybe slightly less, but I’m also equally sure it’s not a great idea to try (I'm also very grateful I didn't experience the problems with the throttle sticking open on some examples that recently saw every Cybertruck recalled).

The problem is that 3.0-tonne weight figure, and all that mass. It feels beyond weird to move something this big, that fast, and it quickly makes you pause for a chilling thought about whether it’s all going to be able to stop again. It does, or it did for me, but boy, it puts the wind up you every time you try.

Overall, though, it’s hard to overstate just how surprisingly good, and yes, at times even fun, the Cybertruck is to drive.

Oh, and for the trainspotters out there, claimed efficiency is 22.4kWh per 100km, but we actually saw 27kWh during our two days of test drives. Our second Cybertruck was also making some distinctly weird metallic clanking noises from underneath, particularly when we switched between forward and reverse.

It might be worth waiting for the second generation of this thing before buying one, but that won’t be an issue for Australian fans, anyway.

As far as its off-road abilities, we managed to find a bit of beach in a car park and pointed the Cybertruck at it. After an initial fearful moment of being sure we were going to sink, we just put the foot down and let all that torque power us out of trouble. It felt effortless.

Some unkind experts have referred to the Cybertruck as a “death machine” and a “guideless missile”, pointing out that putting a stainless steel body on top of a big old battery is inherently problematic. As is the lack of crumple zones.

Making all this very pointy metal move as fast as a McLaren supercar has also raised some questions about sanity.

Then there was the recent recall of every Cybertruck built so far:

"Cybertruck owners reported that their vehicles were at risk of getting stuck driving at full speed due to a loose accelerator pedal. Video showed the pedal itself falling off and the piece beneath wedging itself into the car’s interior, which would force the vehicle into maximum acceleration. One driver was able to save himself from a crash by holding down the brake pedal."

Elon Musk, has claimed, however, that the Cybertruck, is “much safer per mile” than its competitors. 

Australia has different pedestrian safety regulations to the US and while some have posited that the Cybertruck will pass, pointing to the fact that you can buy an even bigger Ram truck here, others are not so sure.

The Tesla Cybertruck does have six airbags, and a suite of active safety features as part of its 'Autopilot' system, but it does not yet have 'Full Self Driving'.