Tesla

A Tesla rental from us is a choice between two completely different reasons to want one. The Cybertruck is the car people cross the street to look at. The Model S Plaid is the car that makes a passenger grab the door handle in the first 2 seconds. Few badges split the sidewalk and the passenger seat this cleanly.

Cybertruck or Cybertruck AWD

Both trucks are the same shape, and the shape is the entire point. Bare stainless steel with no paint on it, a flat windshield with a single wiper nearly 4 feet long, and a bed that seals under a powered cover at the press of a button. Strangers ask if it is real. Pick either for the birthday, the bachelor weekend, the content day, the store opening, or any booking where the plan is to be looked at. The AWD is the drivetrain tier, not a different truck, so pick by availability and rate.

Model S Plaid

The Plaid is one of the quickest accelerating cars you can rent, 0 to 60 in 1.99 seconds with rollout, in a four-door sedan with a trunk at each end. Almost nothing with an engine gets there first. It is silent while it does it, which is more disorienting than the speed. Pick it for the bucket-list drive, the passenger-reaction video, the friend who says he has been in fast cars, and the EV-curious renter who wants a real day in one before ordering.

One Thing to Know

Both cars put the gear selector on the screen and the turn signals on touch pads, so give yourself a few minutes with it before you pull away. It is not hard. It is just different from every other car you have driven. Tesla rentals run $395 to $495 a day.

Two Kinds of Attention

The Cybertruck gets a reaction almost nothing else on the road gets. People point. They walk over. They ask whether it is real, whether you built it, and whether it turns into a truck, and the answer to the last one is to press the button and let the bed cover slide open. Owners describe it as driving a UFO, and on a Southern California street where a Lamborghini is wallpaper, that is a rare thing to be able to rent. It is the image car for anyone whose plan is simply to be seen.

The Model S Plaid is the opposite. Nobody looks twice at a gray sedan. The reaction happens inside the car, in the passenger seat, and it is the same every time. A gasp, a hand on the door, and then laughing. There is a whole genre of video built on that face, and the car is the reason.

The Mechanism Behind Each

The Cybertruck's body is cold-rolled stainless steel with no paint and no clear coat, which is why it looks like nothing else and why it shows fingerprints. The steering has no mechanical link to the wheels. It is steer-by-wire with a variable ratio, less than one full turn lock to lock, so your hands never cross on a U-turn, and the rear wheels steer too, so a truck this size turns like a sedan. The bed has power outlets in it, enough to run film lights on a shoot.

The Plaid gets its number from three motors, one at the front and two at the back, and from a launch sequence that is half the show. Before it goes, the air suspension drops the nose to load the front tires, which Tesla calls Cheetah Stance. Then it goes, with no noise at all, and 60 arrives before the second syllable of whatever they were saying. The silence is what people remember. The frunk, a trunk where an engine would be, gets the second reaction of the day.

Where Each Tesla Goes

A Tesla rental in Southern California splits by car. The Cybertruck belongs where there are people. The Third Street Promenade, a beach lot in Huntington on a Saturday, the Gaslamp in San Diego, a brand activation in a parking lot in Ontario, a Palm Springs pool party. Park it and the crowd assembles. The Plaid belongs on the on-ramps and the long, straight, empty stretches, the 10 heading east before dawn, the 15 toward the desert, and any road where a 3-second window is all the demonstration needs. Neither car needs a canyon.

Delivery and Charging

Both cars deliver across Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, the Inland Empire and Palm Springs, and to LAX, SNA, BUR, LGB, ONT, SAN and PSP. They arrive charged, and Supercharger coverage across the region means a day trip is never a range question. Tesla rentals run $395 to $495 a day depending on the car, and multi-day rates drop the daily price.

Drive a Tesla

In the Plaid you sit low, the wheel is a yoke or a round one depending on the car, and there are no stalks anywhere. The screen is the car. Pull away and the silence is total, then the road noise creeps in because there is nothing to cover it. Find a clear stretch, warm the battery, and press. The seat hits your back, your head goes into the headrest, and the world blurs before you have finished deciding to do it. In the Cybertruck it is the other way around. You sit high behind a windshield the size of a table, the wheel turns less than one full rotation, and the first corner catches everyone out because the truck turns faster than your hands expect. Take the first few minutes gently and by the second stoplight it feels normal, which is the strangest part of all.