
Something Changed at Tesla - jaytaylor
https://jalopnik.com/something-changed-at-tesla-1840068128/
======
AYBABTME
The author is trying pretty hard to pull this narrative. When I first saw it,
I thought the Cybertruck looks hideous. But then, I don't care much what my
car looks like. I often wished the outside of my Golf was more scrappy,
rougher, something I don't need to care about denting. The Cybertruck would be
perfect for me in that sense: you can use that truck and do a lot of work with
it without having to worry about the paint or breaking something. It's a
perfect design for it's intended purpose. To me, it doesn't paint a dystopian
future. It paints a future where appearances serve an intended purpose,
instead of the current opposite. A pickup truck is an utilitarian object. The
cybertruck design is purely utilitarian. I love it.

Now if they could make a Cyberhatchback, I'd buy it right now.

~~~
ncmncm
There is absolutely nothing utilitarian about the design.

Trucks in the 1920s and early 1930s were utilitarian. This thing is 100% about
the look.

~~~
chrisco255
Agreed. In fact one of my biggest arguments against the design is that it will
NOT appeal to the average truck owner, because the design gets in the way of
the utility. For example, a lot of trucks have toolboxes on the front side of
the bed. Due to the triangular sides that pitch at the front of the bed, you
can't reach into the bed there from the side of the truck. That's already a
nonstarter for a work truck. Another thing is bed rails. The triangular design
again prevents the installation of horizontal rails that keep things
relatively level. Same story for a roof rack. It's nearly impossible to craft
a roof rack for this design that doesn't look goofy and ride extremely high.

Look we can argue about stagnation in truck design but there's something to be
said about a timeless design feature, like the classic truck bed. I think
Tesla misses here and so their main market for this will be competing against
off-road SUVs like Jeep Grand Cherokee or Range Rover. The Cybertruck will not
compete directly with say, Ford's F150 and the Silverado.

~~~
bitbang
Don't know if it was designed this way, but if it has a "frunk" like most
electric vehicles do, that would ideally be where the tool box goes. Much more
accessible.

------
makerofspoons
I think the author is reading way too much into the design.

It looks the way it does to drive down production costs and because of the
limitations of the processes used to manufacture it:
[https://electrek.co/2019/11/24/teslas-cybertruck-looks-
weird...](https://electrek.co/2019/11/24/teslas-cybertruck-looks-weird-
because-otherwise-it-would-break-the-machines-to-make-it/)

If there is some concern that Tesla is predicting some dystopian future it
should have begun the moment they introduced 'Bioweapon Defense Mode'.

~~~
ogre_codes
While the idea that this design is all about reducing costs does make a lot of
sense, it doesn't explain the near-bullet-proof windows. Also, while the
stainless exo-skeleton reduces some manufacturing costs, it seems like it
would increase weight significantly which would increase battery requirements.
Considering batteries are still one of the biggest cost components of these
things, that doesn't really sound like a cost reducing measure.

I try not to read motivation behind events, but personally, I'm down with
buying a vehicle designed for the apocalypse. Maybe he's trying to target the
prepper demographic here. Once you add in the solar option, this thing becomes
fully self-sufficient (with the obvious caveat that it's only recharging 10
miles per day)

~~~
mrlambchop
The fact that the windows and doors were compared against bullets and sledge
hammers seems a marketing stunt. The specs for the materials are no doubt from
the requirement "make trucks extremely rugged".

~~~
ogre_codes
That doesn't really fit with the idea that the design choices were based on
aggressively keeping prices down though.

------
_Microft
The design is a statement, it's even a declaration of war.

I think they are targeting people who do not care for environmental issues and
who still think that electric vehicles are something for beaus and weaklings.
If these people can't be convinced to transition to EVs for ecological
reasons, just give them another reason. It doesn't matter _why_ they drive
EVs, just _that_ they do. (Well, and to give other car companies a kick in the
butt in this market segment).

It is a design you can't ignore, it looks metal af and _no matter_ what your
pickup currently looks like, it will appear _wimpy_ next to it.

Also observe that it no longer sports a Tesla logo. The teaser image [0] that
Musk posted before still had one. There is none on the inside either, as far
as I could tell, so maybe they are moving the Cybertruck away from the Tesla
brand. The presentation was on SpaceX' premises as well, if I remember
correctly. (Compare that to Zuckerberg who thinks that Facebook isn't credited
enough for the success of its daughter platforms WhatsApp and Instagram and is
moving them _closer_ to the (imo) toxic brand of Facebook).

[0]
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1106714774694297601](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1106714774694297601)

~~~
paganel
> it's even a declaration of war.

Yeah, it is a declaration of war against pedestrians. Thankfully this thing
will never catch on here in Europe and I'll continue being safe while crossing
the street.

~~~
nordsieck
> Yeah, it is a declaration of war against pedestrians. Thankfully this thing
> will never catch on here in Europe and I'll continue being safe while
> crossing the street.

Speed is what kills, not a slightly harder body.

Even the lightest car has enough mass that it's going to really hurt
pedestrians if it hits one at speed.

And if any car - even this one - hits someone at 5 mph, it's not going to do
that much damage.

~~~
dragonwriter
> And if any car - even this one - hits someone at 5 mph, it's not going to do
> that much damage.

About 2% of auto or light truck vs. pedestrian collisions under 10mph produce
severe injuries, and at all speeds light trucks are more dangerous than autos,
so I think you are overgeneralizing here.

~~~
kortilla
5mph != <10mph

> and at all speeds light trucks are more dangerous than autos,

Citation needed.

------
buboard
Maybe it's overanalyzed? The design is unusual but does look like a low poly
lamborghini, so it has some appeal as sports item. But is the design even
legal? Is it legal in every country to not have side mirrors? That front LED
light is also blinding. And is it OK for a car to have so dangerously stiff
side doors?

I don't know if it says much about the future of cars, it's a more of a
lifestyle item and it remains to be seen how many of the preorders are being
serious.

~~~
ncmncm
The linked article is more revealing:

[https://jalopnik.com/a-deep-look-at-the-design-of-tesla-s-
cy...](https://jalopnik.com/a-deep-look-at-the-design-of-tesla-s-
cybertruck-1839993654)

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
This one is much better: [https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-cybertruck-
electric-pi...](https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-cybertruck-electric-
pickup-engineering-manufacturing)

~~~
ncmncm
That's just bumper-to-bumper hype.

------
macintux
Worth noting that Jalopnik is famous for this sort of controversial take on
things to encourage discussion. I love the site but, apart from its excellent
investigative journalism regarding Goodyear tires and the criminal coverup[1],
its content has never really been about insightful analysis that would warrant
being referenced here.

1: [https://jalopnik.com/goodyear-knew-of-dangerous-rv-tire-
fail...](https://jalopnik.com/goodyear-knew-of-dangerous-rv-tire-failures-for-
over-20-1824997252)

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
It's telling that their opinion fully contradicts what the truck's design team
said about their thought process (cf [https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-
cybertruck-electric-pi...](https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-cybertruck-
electric-pickup-engineering-manufacturing)) and that they don't even care to
consider it.

------
rch
I've had a vehicle to get me from A to B for most of the last 25 years, but
this is the first one I've actually _wanted_.

For context, my first question was: "how much firewood will it carry"?

~~~
ogre_codes
Up to 100 cubic feet with the cover closed, up to 3500 pounds if you add some
redneck plywood panels to stack it higher :D

I was thinking about shuttling mountain bikes up to the top of the hill
myself. I could easily get 6 bikes and 6 people. If they could get summon to
work on forest roads this would be the perfect shuttle truck.

------
impulser_
People that use trucks for actual truck things won't buy this. The design of
the bed is a design flaw. Imagine you work construction and you have tools in
the back of the bed. You will have to climb inside the bed of the truck
everytime to load and unload the tools. You cannot access the bed from the
side because of the stupid design.

There is no way this will compete with the EV F150 that will come out near the
same time frame as this.

Tesla doesn't even have a method to produce the body of these trucks at the
scale needed for production.

Most of the people that pre-order these trucks won't see them until at least
2025, if not later. You think people are going to wait for these over buying
an EV F150 that Ford can produce at scale of the normal F150. Maybe some will
because of the brand, but most will go for the F150.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Can you do that in any modern half ton? They're so much taller than they used
to be; you have to be at six feet tall to reach the bed from the side.

------
gurumeditations
First of all, this is typical Gawker-site blog spam. It has zero insight.

Second of all, while I’m sure you can find some tesla fans who will go for it,
especially with a $100 refundable deposit, I think they just made a bad call.
How they go from Model X/3/S to this, escapes me. I love flat car panels, but
I don’t think anyone who isn’t already a tesla fan will go for it. It’s
viscerally ugly. They got many fundamentals right. The problem is the look.
Trucks are not utilitarian. They are SUVs with the roof removed to make it
less useful so that men will be comfortable buying it. Utilitarianism is not a
legitimate excuse for this design.

It looks like a bunch of Silicon Valley nerds designed a truck they’d want to
drive. It definitely has that niche appeal, but certainly no mass-market
appeal. Is Tesla’s long term strategy to stay in the high end? I wouldn’t be
surprised if they’re doing this kind of niche appeal because the price of
batteries has not come down far enough to make a cheap decent electric car
yet.

~~~
hellotomyrars
Trucks pre-date the SUV and while there is certainly a market segment of
people who buy a truck and don’t have need of a truck the idea an SUV is a
more utilitarian vehicle in the literal sense of the word is beyond the pale.

Agree the Tesla cybertruck is hideous and unlikely to appeal to a mass market
for consumers or commercial operators.

------
aasasd
I've only now taken a look at the truck from all sides, and it does many
things that I've thought of from the standpoint of new design movements being
reactions to previous design movements.

IMO we're currently sorta ripe for cohesive neo-neo-modernism in consumer
tech, after the plenty of show-offery and getting designs ever more
‘friendly’. We've seen that shift in e.g. aluminum Macbooks after earlier
iMacs, but cars seem to trail behind since there's apparently no design nerd
like Jobs there. Cars are all bulbous and curvy now. The closest to a
modernist car that's not looking outright DIY, is the first-generation Audi
TT: just a rounded box on another rounded box.

So what would a modernist car feature nowadays? Let's look at the Cybertruck:

\- Resurrects the wedge shape and makes the panels even flatter than they were
in the 80s, instead of the ubiquitous ‘curve on curve’ of today after we
learned to shape panels whatever which way. Lots of cars from the hatchback
wave of the past decade, like Opel Astra J, looked simultaneously family- and
rally-oriented with no discernible design statement: that feels like baroque
indulgence, it's got to stop.

\- A flat, straight LED line of light instead of barely-comprehensible current
headlights. (Just two giant flat rectangular panels would also do pretty good,
but would resemble SUVs from the 90s.)

\- No decoration of any kind on the front. This one is important, and Tesla
did well here. It's pretty much the last bastion of brand-specific decoration
when cars all look the same shape—but (afaik) even the radiator grille on ICE
cars is only for appearance now, and Tesla has already shown that it's ready
to dispose of that. With the truck, the deed is done.

Funny enough, even recently most attempts at artistic depictions of ‘future
cars’ imagined them more complex, not less. It will be curious to see how
designs turn around now.

~~~
oliv__
> It will be curious to see how designs turn around now.

This is exactly what I've been wondering. Can't wait to see how the rest of
the market reacts to this new direction.

Are all cars going to shift this way? That would look cra-zy on a highway!!

~~~
aasasd
Eh, the collective market is probably incapable of reaction that's not
measured in at least a decade, even though someone really should tame those
shapeless blobs with headlights spilling all over the hood and sides. I'm
placing my hopes in artists first of all, then maybe we'll get some spartan
looks and reincarnations of the Stratos Zero/Countach wedge in consumer sport
cars, and then hopefully some of that seeps into the mass market.

Won't be surprised if Japan barges in, if this becomes a trend at all―it seems
their cars looked cleaner until just recently. Though this might also mean
that they're gonna carry that complexity momentum now that they sorta gained
it.

------
ncmncm
What the author is missing, perhaps, is that Elon thinks he will need trucks
on Mars, and won't be able to take enough with him. But if the heavy parts can
be stamped out by a machine he _can_ take, then he can have trucks there made,
largely, from steel plate refined from Mars dust, and glass refined from Mars
dust.

It won't matter so much if they're too heavy, because gravity is less. It will
need two or three layers of glass, with a vacuum gap between, for warmth, and
to maintain shirtsleeve air pressure. It won't matter how they look, because
nobody will ever go outside except for work, and try to send out robots even
then.

He needs steel refining and rolling to make rocket body/tanks. I wonder how
the thickness of the body panels compares with those of his new rocket
thing...

One thing the author got dead right: these things will look very dated very,
very quickly.

~~~
tim333
Yeah I think he was only half joking when he tweeted:

“Tesla Cybertruck (pressurized edition) will be official truck of Mars.”

~~~
ncmncm
Wow, when did that come out?

Called it.

------
boznz
Just add some attitude adjustment in the software so they cant drive right up
peoples arse on the freeway and problem solved, instantly better than all
other trucks!

------
AndrewKemendo
I think the first commenter on that article said it best:

"The Cybertruck is designed with the sole purpose of brutally driving down the
cost of production. PERIOD.

...

They aren’t building dystopia. That’s your neo-cortex story telling. They are
driving down costs to get the price of what would be a $65,000 truck to a
$45,000 truck so they can remove excuses of why people shouldn’t buy one."

~~~
keyle
And bulletproof material is designed to reduce cost how?

~~~
BenoitEssiambre
Cost of ownership is almost inversely proportional to durability. This car
priced at 40k a will last me 20 years? This is 2k per year for this car.

If they are offering leases, they can offer them for less if they can sell it
at a high price when they get it back.

------
lordleft
This is the first article to acknowledge something I noticed about the
Cybertruck: that it seems to be drawing from a dystopian and cyberpunk
aesthetic. I don't know if that means Elon is portending the end of western
civilization, but it's a very interesting choice and I don't think the article
writer is wrong to unpack what the design connotes.

------
rb808
Personally I love the design.

First thing I thought of is that it looks a lot like a stealth fighter -
interestingly, does that mean it can avoid radar speed detectors too?

~~~
perl4ever
I'm definitely not an expert, but from what I've read, there's a lot of irony
in the angular look of the F-117a becoming the icon of "futuristic". That
plane, first of all was designed in the mid to late 1970s. Second, notice that
newer [stealthy] planes don't look the same? What people say is that the
facets were purely a necessity to simplify the calculations needed to make it
stealthy. People did incredible things when computing power was expensive to
solve problems analytically, which became obsolete once you could just apply
brute force.

Also, I don't know about the business of making movie props, but it seems
plausible to me that when making cars for SF movies, decades ago when budgets
were lower, probably involved large sheets of plywood, cardboard, foamcore or
whatever, hence big facets would be the most expedient design.

It's weird how arbitrary so many signaling mechanisms are.

------
nodesocket
> because we are running out of oil, the precious and finite resource that is
> utterly destroying our planet.

Not really running out. The US is the largest oil producing nation in the
world now, and our output is at the highest levels[1] in history. Oil is
practically dirt cheap and I don't see it breaking out in price anytime soon.

[1]
[https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=M...](https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS1&f=M)

~~~
xiphias2
,,The stone age didn't end because the lack of stones''

------
danans
Even if the general shape of the cybertruck follows from the materials and
production process, the packaging and marketing is clearly playing off
dystopian fantasies. Both of these things can be true at the same time.

Selling cars is as much about telling a story as it is about explaining how
you will get someone from point A to point B. That's even true for "boring"
family cars - the story they are telling is one of reliability.

~~~
Nasrudith
Personally I think looking upon the stort elements is the tail wagging the
dog. Theym story is the means for the emotional elements. Like many fugly SUVs
made themselves inefficent roll over risks to try to sell illusions of
security the styling is selling a power fantasy in addition. Not uncommon for
truck marketing.

Not only collision protection which they pride themselves on but overkill
"sledgehammer resistance" and projectile resistance to not worry about it.
They even boasted solar roof options to give gradual recharge.

~~~
imtringued
Sledgehammer resistance isn't useful in practice.

Getting T-boned is one of the worst types of collisions even though the B
pillar usually doesn't get breached. All the energy of the collision is still
being transferred into the occupants which often results in a coma with no
visible injuries (other than getting your brain smashed). The purpose of
crumple zones is to dissipate the energy of a collision and avoid these types
of accidents.

------
loceng
They designed from first principles. That's it. What would a truck look like
if you built in the utility that's desired with a pickup truck - Cybertruck is
what you get. They kept it simple with the EV benefits and good design twist.

250k pre-orders at last tweet I saw from Musk - and the online video reviews
are reasonable people saying they love it, pre-ordered and will buy it, even
if they're still not 100% sold on its look.

~~~
hellotomyrars
How do you review a product you don’t have access to?

------
carrozo
I had similar thoughts, but, um, skate where the puck is headed?

~~~
cududa
I think that’s the authors point. Not admonishing the design but that this is
what our culture wants

------
nouveau0
This article just screams anti-EV. Jalopnik writers have a huge bias towards
ICE.

> Cars are a reflection of ourselves, whether we choose to festoon them in
> explicit messages or not. They can show what we hope for, what we aspire to,
> not just how large or how modest our bank accounts are. They are how we
> present ourselves to our fellow human

Ya, not everyone believes that

~~~
kortilla
Seriously, cars are not a fashion item and anyone who thinks otherwise is
speaking from a position of privilege.

~~~
thephyber
Sales numbers on hideous cars (eg. Pontiac Aztec) of the past say otherwise.
There is absolutely some correlation between how fashionable a car is and how
well it sells.

~~~
kortilla
Yet the Prius sold by the droves despite its “obvious hideousness” declared by
reviewers at the time of its release.

~~~
LyndsySimon
The hideousness of the Prius was on purpose: it was visibly signaling that the
owner was someone motivated by environmental concerns.

------
sunstone
This was a nice exercise in creative writing. The Model X and the truck are
different vehicles for different use cases. One is a luxury vehicle and the
other is a cheap as chips (almost) utilitarian vehicle that can take a
beating. Neither is a metaphor for the future of mankind.

------
mendelmaleh
Or maybe they're just trying to target two different markets. Don't put all
your eggs in one basket...

------
dammitcoetzee
It's a truck you dork. You do work with it. It gets dented. Gravel comes up
and chips your window.

~~~
Gibbon1
I call that 'patina'. If anyone is upset their truck has a scratch they
probably shouldn't own one.

------
jdmoreira
I'm buying one and so is William Gibson. Cars never appealed to me until I saw
the Cybertruck.

------
m463
Aren't trucks supposed to be about "drive somewhere and do some stuff"?

------
jayparth
I disagree with this article. Of course your messaging is going to be
different when selling a pickup truck and a SUV. If anything I see
commonalities between Model X and Cybertruck- both are unashamed with their
design, even though it might be impractical to some, or ugly.

This reminds me of English class in high school where we were made to read
into themes and "literary devices." A lot of times the themes were
substantial, and the authors intended them to mean something and convey a
message to the reader. But many times they didn't- we were tasked with finding
a theme so we would look for anything that resembled narrative so we could
finish our essay.

This guy is looking too hard.

~~~
dmix
I also thought it was telling he kept mentioning Tesla X, which is a product
category exclusively for upper-middle class and is hardly Tesla's mainstream
vision for cars, nor the most popular.

If anything they should be talking about Tesla's 3 if we're going to talk
about what our car designs mean for our future vision for society (which of
course will always have it's limits).

------
lizardking
TLDR: author projects their anxiety and angst onto an electric truck.

------
jdkdnfndnfjd
This whole article and it’s sentiment is wrong. It’s a good example of a
person who is not capable of thinking from first principles or who never
watched the reveal. Which describes basically everyone’s reaction to the
truck.

What is a truck? A utilitarian vehicle. Does aesthetics add utility to the
vehicle? No. Does it cost lots of money to make the car look swoopy? Yes. Does
it increase the utility to give the vehicle an exoskeleton rather than a
traditional frame? Yes. Should we make the car swoopy instead of making it an
exoskeleton? No.

Literally every logical angle points to doing what they did. They maximized
utility and minimized cost. Is this a good formula for a regular car? No! Is
this a good formula for a utility vehicle? Yes! Are there lots of idiots out
there who like to daily drive “utility vehicles” for their commute? Yes!

Doug D reviews the car and said it costs too much. But he only ever compared
the upfront cost of the trucks. You save money on fuel and maintenance with an
ev, and his omission of that was glaring.

People saying strong glass is bad because first responders. If I want to have
strong glass then that’s my right. And living in the sf Bay Area, I don’t just
want strong glass I fucking need strong glass. Elon musk shared a video on
twitter of the glass resisting a 1kg steel ball being thrown at it. When it
broke on stage it was a fluke. And 9mm resistance would also be really nice.
Apparently Doug D never visited Oakland.

~~~
danans
> Does aesthetics add utility to the vehicle? No

If you don't think there wasn't a ton of thought put into the aesthetics of
the cybertruck, you don't understand how cars are designed. It's not a design
that emerges from pure functionalism at all. Pure functionalism is a bus or a
train, a dump truck, or a goods delivery vehicle, like the kind that brings
beer to a corner store. I say that as someone who would probably buy a
cybertruck.

> Apparently Doug D never visited Oakland.

Leave Oakland out of it. You wouldn't believe it but children play on the
streets here without wearing any body armor at all.

~~~
kortilla
> You wouldn't believe it but children play on the streets here without
> wearing any body armor at all.

Doesn’t mean it’s smart. Oakland might be safe but children playing on the
streets without body armor isn’t an argument because the same can be said for
most war zones.

