Jackson Hemphill, 17, has already put dozens of hours into playing the version of “Fallout Shelter” in the Tesla Cybertruck.
The interior of the new vehicle is sparse: The controls feature only a steering wheel, pedals for acceleration and braking, and a large tablet computer. All the vehicle’s other controls are accessed from the tablet.
When the truck isn’t being driven, Jackson loads up and plays “Fallout Shelter” — set in Bethesda Softworks’ “Fallout” universe, he helps the Dwellers inside his Vault live happy, productive lives and protects them from the hazards of a nuclear wasteland.
Darick Hemphill, Jackson’s father, said he has found Jackson playing the game for hours. The truck’s powerful battery can easily handle that light task, so that’s not a problem, he said.
It’s perhaps not the use the family envisioned in 2019, when they placed their order for the futuristic new truck. Hemphill, an attorney, and his wife, Amanda, own General Rental Center and Eventful Rental. They envisioned how the Cybertruck could boost their business and their community service efforts.
They finally got a chance to take possession of their Cybertruck last month, as the first models of its Foundation Series rolled off Tesla’s production line.
The endpoints of that five-year stretch sandwich a much more important waiting game for the Hemphills. In between the order and the delivery of the truck, Jackson underwent treatment for an aggressive form of leukemia. With the help of the staff at St. Jude's Children’s Research Hospital, Jackson has been in remission for three years.
As Jackson underwent a risky treatment, the Cybertruck waiting game became a touchstone for future possibilities, and a reason to keep on going. Darick and Jackson would talk about whether the truck would live up to the promises of its inventor, how it would handle and other features.
“You find things to talk about, to latch onto, that are points out in the future, just to think about it,” Darick said. “On days when he wasn’t feeling so good, we’d talk about, ‘Hey, what do think that’s going to be like? Where do you want to go? Will it have as much power or less power?’ It was a talking point to talk about.”
A five-year wait for the Cybertruck
Darick Hemphill has heard all of the jokes about Tesla and its mercurial founder and CEO, Elon Musk. Hemphill has been hearing from family and friends for five years, as a matter of fact.
Forget about the Twitter acquisition and transformation into X, or the celebrity marriages and differently named children — the billionaire owner and his EV company have had plenty of struggles delivering the Cybertruck and living up to its lofty promises.
The wedge-shaped, boxy Cybertruck has drawn plenty of derision for its polygonal design featuring none of the aerodynamic curves of other electric vehicles. As it was developed, Cybertruck missed every delivery deadline, finally hitting the market two years late. The first Cybertrucks were delivered in late 2023.
Even the introduction of the vehicle in 2019 was marred by a demonstration gone wrong: The Cybertruck’s windows, boasting supposedly unbreakable “Tesla Armor Glass,” shattered and splintered when a softball-sized hunk of metal was thrown at them.
The Hemphills were undeterred, however. Darick said that Musk knew exactly how to hook him: The company offered a Foundation Series edition of the Cybertruck, with unique features and a promise of early delivery before base models.
The Foundation Series Cybertruck carried a starting price of $102,235, according to the website CarPro. Both Musk and the Hemphills are fans of Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series. The Hemphill’s daughter, Bayta, is named after the hero of the second book in the series, “Foundation and Empire.”
But the Hemphills saw more than a splurge into sci-fi fandom, Darick said. They saw a statement and investment into their businesses. Darick and Amanda were intrigued by the vehicle’s expanded towing capabilities, which were projected to be higher than normal. The truck’s range on a single charge is far enough to handle deliveries to most of the business’ clients.
“We try to offer the most modern and new equipment,” Darick said. “So we thought that by getting a truck like this, it would symbolize what we’ve always tried to do over the years, having the newest, nicest and cool stuff that helps people get their jobs done.”
Darick Hemphill's parents started General Rental Center in 1987. It includes two Springfield locations and stores in Ozark and Republic. The couple also owns Eventful Rental, which specializes in rentals for weddings, parties and special events. Formerly a smaller part of General Rental, Darick and Amanda expanded it in 2019 with a separate location and much larger inventory.
That same year, Darick ordered the Cybertruck, figuring that if Musk could get rockets into space, he could figure out production for an Earth-based electric truck.
The next few years offered nothing but delays. Promised performance stats lowered, while the price tag rose. After almost five years, the Hemphills got word in December 2023 that their truck was being manufactured. They received the VIN in April 2024, and picked up the truck in the first part of May.
Driving the new vehicle around Springfield has been a fun experience, Darick said. He gets a lot of waves from other drivers and passengers on the road.
It took a bit of adjustment to get used to driving it, however. The sparse controls are placed differently than in other trucks. Now that Darick has adjusted to the controls, he finds them quite intuitive: Turn signals, for instance, are activated with a touch control on the wheel, not a separate stick extending from the steering column.
“The handling is way better,” Darick said. “When I put it into Chill Mode, which is the normal driving mode, it’s the most comfortable vehicle I’ve ever been in.” Darick said that he drove all the way to Memphis in the Cybertruck and didn’t feel any aches and pains, or much less a need to get out and walk.
Its acceleration is also as good as advertised. Boasting 0 to 60 mph in 2.6 seconds, Darick said he definitely feels the force when he hits the “gas” pedal.
The Cybertruck doesn’t yet have all the advertised features, but updates to its programming have been coming in almost weekly, Darick said. He anticipates getting self-driving features maybe in a year or so — although those features likely won’t be insured for business use, he said.
Darick also plans his own upgrade: He is working with Ink Monkey to develop some custom vinyl wraps, which will help better identify the Cybertruck with its business.
The vinyl wrap will also help with another mission: Raising awareness for St. Jude.
Fight with leukemia brings perspective, purpose
Darick’s trip to Memphis was to visit the clinic where he and Jackson received treatment in 2021. In Jaunary of that year, Jackson was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a fast-growing form of cancer in blood cells.
“He went from being my normal middle kid who never caused any trouble to being at the doctor and they are telling us there is a chance he’ll die,” Darick said. “When it’s your kid and you hear that, everything stops.”
The Hemphills were beneficiaries of St. Jude’s services. Founded in 1962 by Danny Thomas, the non-profit research hospital helps children fight against cancer and other diseases at no cost to its patients’ families.
Darick and Jackson, then 14, stayed at the Memphis-based hospital for diagnosis and a dangerous treatment process that put Jackson's immune system at risk. The visit lasted six months, with Darick and Jackson staying in an apartment while Amanda, Bayta and Harrison remained in Springfield.
Those long stays might be different with a younger child, Darick said. Jackson was well aware of his mortality, however, and that his future was uncertain. Darick said it was encouraging to hear Jackson ask about the Cybertruck during those times. They talked for hours about it, he said.
But not everything about treatment was grueling. Darick said the doctors, nurses and staff at St. Jude went out of their way to work miracles. Jackson ended up bonding with physician's assistant Hayley Arceneaux. Herself a childhood cancer survivor, she was selected to be the chief medical officer for Inspiration4, the world's first all-civilian space expedition powered by Musk's SpaceX company.
While the treatment was painful and exhausting, Darick said the Hemphills were lucky and got the best possible results — treatment with none of the damaging side effects such as loss of limbs or organ function.
Jackson has been in remission for three years. He is healthy enough to have earned his driver’s license — he was able to take Darick to the hospital after he suffered from a heart issue.
“Five years is the magic number. Once you get to five years, your risk of it coming back is very low,” Darick said. “But it’s cancer, so it could come back tomorrow. And that’s one of the things that St. Jude really teaches, is to be grateful for every moment you get.”
The Hemphills are now St. Jude superfans. Darick’s recent trip to Memphis was to meet with patients and doctors of the hospital’s main campus. Patients of all ages got to see the Cybertruck up close, he said.
“That was one of the funnest things I’ve ever done at St. Jude,” Darick said. “It just blew their little minds to see that.”
They are now active volunteers for the group, helping to raise money and pay the generosity they received forward.
“The Springfield Run/Walk and Dream Home Giveaway have been big parts of our lives,” Amanda said. “Most people in Springfield still do not know that Mercy Hospital now has a St. Jude affiliate that treats hundreds of families in the Ozarks who have had a childhood diagnosis of cancer.”
That’s where the Cybertruck will come in. Along with messaging about the hospital, they are looking into ways it can help raise money.
Darick already has one idea (and the ability to get insurance for it): Renting out a protected space where people can drive the Cybertruck for themselves.
“We’ve talked to a race track about the possibility of opening up and letting people do laps on it, in a controlled environment,” Darick said. “We have also talked about renting it out as a date night vehicle with a chauffeur to show up and drive. We are all over the spectrum.”
An idea to let Jackson drive the Cybertruck for his last day of school was unfortunately rejected, Darick said. Ol’ Dad’s a stickler about insurance.
The road ahead
The Cybertruck isn’t perfect, Darick said. A windshield crack, there on delivery, will need to be fixed in a few months. Self-driving features won’t be available for probably a year or two, he said.
But it’s two annoyances that pale to having their family intact. Jackson’s battle with leukemia could have already ended badly. The Cybertruck’s potential to help raise money and awareness might help more families to a similar result, he said.
“He has a small scar on his chest, and if you didn’t know what that was, you’d never know he had cancer,” Darick said. “We’ve been so lucky, and there have been so many families there who have been there for months and are now finding out their kid is not going to make it … I feel like I’ve learned more lessons from that experience than probably anything else that I’ve gone through, the importance of never taking a moment for granted.”
