A father of four looked at his new Tesla Cybertruck and saw a problem that the factory would not solve for him: there was no way to seat his entire family in the cab at once. Tesla had once teased a front bench with room for three, but the production truck arrived with a fixed center console and a five-seat layout. So the dad did what Tesla would not, commissioning a custom front middle seat so all four kids could ride up front.
His project has become a viral symbol of the gap between the radical ideas Tesla shows on stage and the more constrained vehicles it ultimately delivers. It also highlights how owners, forums and independent shops are quietly reshaping the Cybertruck into the machine they thought they were ordering in the first place.
The dad who built the family-size Cybertruck Tesla skipped
The owner at the center of this story is described as a father of four who wanted his Tesla Cybertruck to function like an old-school pickup with a full-width front bench. Instead of accepting the five-seat limit, he had the center console removed and a new jump seat fabricated so that all four children could sit across the front row. Coverage of the build notes that the upholstery matches the factory material closely, which makes the extra perch look like it rolled out of Tesla’s own design studio. Reports identify the writer Stephen Rivers and emphasize that this is a Cybertruck owner acting on his own, not a quiet pilot program from Jan or anyone inside Tesla.
Other outlets describe the same father of four looking at his gleaming Tesla Cybertruck and repeatedly thinking that it should have been a true six seater. One account explains that he wanted a real six-seater configuration, not a child-sized jump seat or a flimsy add-on, and that the custom work delivered exactly that by turning the front row into a three-across bench while keeping the rear row intact. The result is a truck that can legitimately be called a six-seat Tesla Cybertruck in everyday use, even though Tesla itself has never sold such a configuration.
Prototype promises, production compromises and owner backlash
The frustration behind this build traces back to Tesla’s own early imagery. When the Cybertruck was first shown, interior photos of the Prototype clearly depicted a front bench with a folding center section, implying that three adults could sit across the front. As the vehicle moved from Prototype to Production, that idea disappeared and the truck arrived with a large central touchscreen and fixed console instead. One analysis of this evolution notes that early interior photos set expectations that owners are now attempting to bridge themselves.
Inside the Tesla Cybertruck Forum, which is part of the Cybertruck Owners Club, enthusiasts have been tracking what they call the first modified six-seat Cybertruck with a center front jump seat. One thread describes how the builder essentially removed the center console and installed a full seat in its place, and posters debate why Tesla decided against this layout. The discussion frames the truck as the first known modified example in the owner community, while acknowledging that other experiments, including shop projects, have explored similar ideas. A separate video walkaround of the same family build reinforces that point, with the host noting in Jan that they removed the console and added a whole seat, presenting it as the first six-seat Cybertruck they had personally seen on the road.
Why Tesla walked away from the sixth seat
Owners have spent years trying to reverse engineer Tesla’s thinking. In one Cybertruck Facebook group, a member named Brian Hunt argues that the missing front bench is presumably about safety, given modern airbag rules and the fact that very few new vehicles still offer a true front bench. Others in the same thread point to the giant central screen and evolving crash standards, with one commenter saying the humongous screen killed the idea of a middle seat. That conversation also references Laird Popkin and Matthew P discussing how shrinking the truck’s width and adding center airbags complicated any plan for a sixth seat.
Another Cybertruck group thread, opened by someone who calls themselves a Long time listener and first time caller, asks bluntly whether a six seater model is on the horizon. The replies are unequivocal. Commenters insist it is not going to happen because of the middle seat in the front, call it not a thing, and argue that packaging a safe center position around the existing screen and airbag layout would be quite the engineering challenge. One participant flatly states that a six seater is never ever happening and that Tesla quietly dropped its own six seater plan along the way.
Shops, safety questions and a pattern of owner-led fixes
The father’s truck is not the only Cybertruck to get a front middle seat, even if it is the most widely discussed family-focused build. Earlier, a shop called EVs Republic documented a Cyber Truck in its facility as part of a Foundation Series project, with Gary walking viewers through the addition of a sixth seat in the front row. In that video, he describes the work as a very special treat and shows how the Cyber Truck in the shop is being reconfigured to carry an extra passenger. That earlier experiment underscores that the owner community and independent fabricators have been probing this idea for some time, even before the current wave of attention around the dad’s family hauler.
Ukrainian coverage of the father’s build, under the banner Tesla Cybertruck Owner Added a Center Seat to Transport Four Kids in the Front, stresses that Tesla never offered such a configuration from the factory. The report explains that the owner wanted to Transport Four Kids in the Front and that the Center Seat was the only way to do it, framing the project as a response to Tesla’s decision to abandon the center seat. The same story, in both its standard and amp versions, repeats that Tesla Cybertruck Owner the seat specifically so the four children could share the front row and that Tesla never proposed this layout itself.
Design tradeoffs, quiet tweaks and the safety backdrop
Inside the Cybertruck Owners Club, members have also been parsing comments from Tesla design chief Franz about why the front bench vanished. One post recounts Franz explaining that as they shrunk the truck, the team prioritized the comfort of the driver and main passenger to match premium expectations, which pushed the center position off the table. That same discussion notes that shrinking the truck and meeting airbag requirements with a screen in the middle made the original six-seat plan far harder to execute.
Tesla has quietly adjusted the Cybertruck even after deliveries began, reinforcing how fluid the design has been. One report notes that Tesla made a change to the Cybertruck that nobody outside the company could have noticed until it was revealed by documentation, highlighting how the automaker can alter structural details without fanfare. The piece explains that Tesla made a that affected what had changed about the vehicle, even as the exterior looked the same. That habit of iterative, sometimes opaque, modification sits against a broader Pattern of Controversy Around Safety Systems The company has faced, including a lawsuit in which a family alleges that a Model S fire turned fatal because the doors trapped victims inside, raising questions about Tesla’s design philosophy. The case is cited as part of a Pattern of Controversy that colors how regulators and owners view any nonstandard seating or restraint changes.
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