UK owner of seized Cybertruck reveals what really happened and responds to the incident
- Owner of the Cybertruck seized in the UK reveals what happened
- The truck was seized because it didn’t have the relevant paperwork
- But after a bit more digging, another problem emerged
Published on Feb 05, 2025 at 1:16 PM (UTC+4)
by Alessandro Renesis
Last updated on Feb 05, 2025 at 1:16 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Kate Bain
A Tesla Cybertruck was recently seized in the UK and the news did the rounds on social media.
Everyone was talking about it, headlines were written, and comments were made.
Now, the Cybertruck owner has revealed the truth about what really happened.
As it turns out, there’s a very specific reason why this happened, and it’s a problem that had never been mentioned before.
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This Cybertruck owner is having a nightmare
Yianni Charalambous, founder of Yiannimize and the man behind the eponymous YouTube channel, was one of the first people to import a Tesla Cybertruck into the UK.
He knew it wouldn’t be easy, but registering the Cybertruck turned out be a lot more difficult than he thought.
He modified the truck extensively, but it still wasn’t enough.
There’s a very long list of things he had to do.
He changed the brake lights, rear indicators, windshield wiper.
He even had wing mirror indicators fitted, a requirement in the UK but not in the United States.
But that still wasn’t enough to make the truck road legal, and now Yianni is holding his breath because Alban, the guy he bought the truck from, had his Cybertruck seized by the police.
The real reason why the truck is still banned
When one of Alban’s two Cybertrucks got pulled over by the police, they weren’t happy with the paperwork provided.
The police didn’t provide a clear reason why that was the case but, after a bit of digging, Yianni discovered the real problem was the steer-by-wire system, which apparently isn’t legal in the UK.
Steer-by-wire, for reference, means the steering wheel is not physically attached to the wheels, and steering is handled by software.
This was the main issue.
But after a bit more digging, Yianni found out that there’s another vehicle, the Lexus RZ450e, which will soon be available in the UK with steer-by-wire.
The Lexus SUV is expected to go into production with this technology in the UK in August.
So presumably the Cybertruck will be ‘set free’ soon enough.
