- A New Jersey pizzeria is using Tesla’s Cybertruck to serve pizza on the go.
- The Tesla truck’s battery is used to power a portable pizza oven.
- The owners say they are big Tesla fans and would like to cook pizza for Elon Musk one day.
A pizzeria in New Jersey has converted two Cybertrucks into pizza trucks, taking advantage of one of the Tesla vehicle’s most futuristic features to prepare pizzas on the go.
Columbia Inn owners Fabio Antonio Arbelaez and Ryan McDermott purchased three Tesla Cybertrucks to turn into pizza delivery vehicles.
They wanted new vehicles to ease the pressure on their petrol pizza truck, which, according to the two partners, was often booked months in advance.
Now they say they’re facing a surge in demand for their Cybertruck pizza trucks, which they’ve adapted to make pizzas at parties and events.
“We designed a special pull-out bed on the truck and installed an electric pizza oven, LED umbrellas and a small cooling unit, all of which are powered by the truck,” said Arbelaez.
Pizza on wheels
Arbelaez told Business Insider that the two 120-volt and one 240-volt outlets in the Cybertruck’s bed, which draw power from the battery, make it perfect for preparing fresh pizza.
The Cybertruck has two electrical outlets in the truck bed that can power appliances, including pizza ovens. Fabio Antonio Arbelaez/Columbia Inn
“Our big gas truck can only go so many places,” McDermott said.
“We can take the Cybertruck to the middle of the Sahara desert, provided we are fully charged, cook pizzas for six hours and drive back,” he added.
Elon Musk promised the Cybertruck would be an “apocalypse-proof” off-roader last year when the first deliveries began.
A series of viral videos have shown the Cybertruck struggling with sandy beaches, snowy terrain and a steep hill.
Like other electric vehicles, including the Ford F-150 Lightning, the Cybertruck features bi-directional charging, allowing it to become a mobile power source for appliances and even other electric vehicles.
Some EV owners have used bi-directional charging to power their homes and vital machines during storms and floods, and some F-150 owners in Florida used their vehicles to keep their homes running during Hurricane Helene.
McDermott said the Cybertruck doesn’t always get positive reactions. Fabio Antonio Arbelaez/Columbia Inn
Arbelaez and McDermott use two of their Cybertrucks as mobile pizza kitchens, and the third is available on the car rental platform Turo.
Arbelaez told BI that in the five months the first “CyberPizzaTruck” was in service, the vehicle had paid off 40% of its price – and with demand soaring, they are considering ordering more.
“Many people criticized me in 2012 when I got a Tesla Model S. They said I was stupid for buying that car, because Tesla would go bankrupt and electric cars would never succeed,” Arbelaez said.
“I got that car because I understood the importance of companies like Tesla, so I wanted to contribute. I hope we have more companies like Tesla and people like Elon Musk,” he added.
Arbelaez said growing up on a coffee farm in Colombia taught him the importance of preserving the environment.
“Fossil fuels are a wasteful energy source. We use non-renewable natural resources to produce energy, and when we do, we are polluting the atmosphere and impacting the environment,” he said.
McDermott said that while the Cybertruck is attracting a lot of attention, the response isn’t always positive.
“You get a lot of haters. I’ve seen people yell at me on the freeway saying, ‘That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,'” he said, adding that he believes the reactions are due to hostility over electric vehicles.
“It just makes me scratch my head and laugh. I think that means we are winning the war here.”
McDermott and Arbelaez hope to one day serve pizza to Musk and Tesla employees at the company’s Austin headquarters.
“We want to be the first people to make pizza on the moon and Mars, and we want to make pizza for them on our Cybertruck in Texas,” McDermott said.
