It looks like Tesla Cybertruck's stainless steel might be a fingerprint magnet

Tesla CEO
Elon Musk gestures toward a Cybertruck
Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP via Getty Images

Photos of the Tesla Cybertruck show the stainless steel truck appears to smudge easily.
Stainless steel appliances are known to be magnets for fingerprints and smudges.
It’s unclear how Tesla plans to address the issue or if it’s working on a solution.

The Tesla Cybertruck appears to smudge easily, photos of the electric pickup truck show.

“Someone was asking me about fingerprints and smudges on Cybertruck,” one Tesla fan posted on X, formerly known as Twitter on Friday. “You’ll have to either learn to live with this, or wrap it immediately.”

Another X user posted a photo of the truck with what appear to be a series of finger print marks along the door and near the driver’s side mirror.

Even photos from Getty of the Cybertruck in California appear to show broad smudges marring the sides of the truck. 

A spokesperson for Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from Insider ahead of publication.

The vehicle’s stainless steel body could make it prone to smudges and extra finger prints — an issue that is commonly seen with stainless steel appliances. The Cybertruck is the first stainless steel vehicle to be produced since DMC made the stainless steel DeLorean and later halted production in 1983.

“Stainless steel is like that sleek black car: beautiful when it’s clean and shiny, but often looks dull and dirty if it’s not properly maintained,” says Tim Conn, president and cofounder of Image One, a commercial cleaning company, told Architectural Digest in July.

For appliances, experts typically recommend owners clean the stainless steel surfaces about once a week to keep them from looking grimy and even apply olive oil to help keep smudges at bay, the publication said. But, it’s unclear what Tesla plans to do to address the issue and it’s a problem area some Cybetruck fans have identified in the past.

“I usually don’t clean the exterior of my white Tesla Model Y but THIS gives me OCD,” one user wrote on a Cybetruck forum last year. “Looks like somebody attempted to clean it and it was not ‘perfect.’ Will all Cybertrucks look like this after few weeks of use?”

While, Tesla’s gigafactory in Texas produced its first Cybertruck model earlier this summer the company could make changes to the design ahead of its release.

Insider’s Nora Naughton previously reported that Tesla fans have already begun picking on the Cybertruck design and the stakes are high for the vehicles release. 

Elon Musk first unveiled the concept for the electric pickup truck about four years ago and the project has faced a series of delays over the past two years. Most recently, the Tesla CEO said the company will begin deliveries by the end of the year. Last year, the EV blog Electrek reported Tesla had over 1.5 million pre-orders for the Cybertruck. The pre-orders require a $100 deposit.