Unlike any other previous Tesla, or for that matter any other previous electric car, this is a reasonable value proposition. Everyone is so busy panning the looks they are overlooking the utility of this truck. Even the Model 3 is expensive compared to its peers at $35k. This this is priced competitive with non-electric trucks, heck, it's priced extremely well versus electric trucks. A 6 seat truck with a 6.5 foot truck bed and a 3500 pound capacity for $40k is genuinely competitive with GM/ Ford, likewise $50k for a 4WD truck which tows 14k pounds is absolutely reasonable. Unless you are regularly driving more than 250 miles per day, being able to charge at home is way better than filling up at gas stations.
> Unless you are regularly driving more than 250 miles per day, being able to charge at home is way better than filling up at gas stations.
There's no way the Tesla truck gets 250 miles when loaded up with 3500 pounds or hauling a trailer. It's very unclear if the range is sufficient if you use this truck like an actual truck where you need those things. Similarly if you are using this as a work truck there's some poor design choices involved here, too. Like the inability to access the bed from the sides of the vehicle. Or the non-flat roof complicating roof racks or additional lighting.
This appears to be more of a "lifestyle" truck than a "work" truck, and in that market how important are the extra cargo pounds or trailer capacity?
Work trucks are those plain white base model trucks with steel wheels and plastic interiors. You get them cheap and they will basically approve anyone for cheap financing of a few trucks through their business. Nobody is catering to those buyers when they design a truck. You look at those things on the lot and they look like one of the nicer trucks except only partially assembled.
The $50k trucks are basically for suburban dads. They used to drive luxury sedans while their wives drove minivans. Now the dads drive trucks that have replaced the minivan and the moms drive luxury SUVs. Trucks need to fit 6+ people, have nice interiors and enough space for hauling kids' sports gear and Home Depot stuff on the weekends. The Cybertruck is perfect for this segment. Fits 6 people, has plenty of hauling capacity and will take down a Ferrari in the 1/4 mile.
> They used to drive luxury sedans while their wives drove minivans. Now the dads drive trucks that have replaced the minivan and the moms drive luxury SUVs.
I've been thinking for a while now that luxury trucks (like the F-150 Platinum, Silverado High Country, etc.) are basically the modern-day versions of giant land-yacht sedans like the Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight, Cadillac DeVille, Mercury Grand Marquis, Lincoln Town Car, etc.
You can thank CAFE focusing more on car fuel economy than truck fuel economy, plus a culture that's come to increasingly value high ride height and a rugged image.
Let's be honest, this truck won't replace Chevy/Ram/Ford trucks on work sites. This truck will primarily be used to haul mountain bikes, soccer equipment and the occasional run to Home Depot.
those are literally the three things that are a major pain in the neck for me [sedan], and when I saw that tesla was developing a truck, I was like "oh sweet! Now I can hit the trails and haul garden supplies with a greater level of convenience, and without smuggering up the earth as much!"
>those are literally the three things that are a major pain in the neck for me [sedan]
Never been a problem for me with a Honda Fit, at it's a subcompact with a footprint of a VW beetle. The seats fold down almost into the floor, giving me plenty of cargo space.
My friend had a minivan with folding seats, he used to carry his enduro motorcycle in it.
I have a hard time believing anyone living in a city needs a truck for anything except work.
You'd need charging stations - an added cost/inconvenience to the ordeal. I don't know if you've been around many job sites and/or locations where they might store the trucks - charging infrastructure isn't there. It's going to vary a lot on the company though - tbh. Work trucks have so many varied uses that it's hard to say. Some people take their trucks home - but then they're not gonna wanna charge at home because then that costs them $$$ and tracking that expenditure might be annoying every night. (Versus filling up whenever you need and saving the receipt or using the company card) This is presuming they can charge at home - which some workers won't be able to.
The other part is that work trucks need good integration with tools and tool storage. You need to be able to add tool storage/access on the sides of the truck. If you can't do that - it's going to eliminate a lot of the market for a work truck. But - of course - that's just ONE type of work truck. (One where a person is getting out and doing manual labor with tools - electricians, plumbers, general handymen, etc.)
Other types of work trucks are basically completely different and require an entirely different bed. And the Tesla here definitely won't work with those. (Think flat bed trucks used for hauling)
I think the idea of this being a work truck is a silly idea. I don't know why anyone is thinking this would even be a remotely good idea considering you can't mount anything to it.
A lot of work trucks drive less than 200 miles per day. Being able to keep them plugged in at night and start every day at 100% charge is likely more convenient than having to stop at a gas station and fuel up for most plumbers/ electricians/ framers.
> The other part is that work trucks need good integration with tools and tool storage.
This is a much bigger issue and it fully depends on use. There are bed sliders which would help a bunch.
Also, lifting things out through the side of the truck bed is very much a thing and it's basically impossible with this design.
> I think the idea of this being a work truck is a silly idea.
For some jobs it would work fine, but for a large chunk of professionals the design is too out there to be useful.
Tools can be put in either the cab or the bed, and presumably both can be locked. I can see where some people might not like the high side-walls on the bed where you can only really get stuff in and out through the back.
I suppose Tesla could possibly add a tool storage frunk in the front if they thought it was worthwhile and they can spare the room in their design.
Pickup trucks in general are sometimes criticized as not being great work trucks [1], and I generally agree -- I think it's an awkward form factor and would probably rather use a large van for most of the things people use pickups for, but clearly people still buy them and many of them are used as work trucks. Many people also buy them and don't use them as work trucks. Making a pickup truck that people could use for work or for non-work is consistent with Tesla's goal of getting as many electric cars on the road as they can.
> I think it's an awkward form factor and would probably rather use a large van for most of the things people use pickups for
Hell, I've gotten away with using a minivan for things most people would use a pickup for for decades. My dad's 87 Aerostar growing up allowed for the back bench and both middle seats to be entirely removed, and we did that a lot.
I've had a few friends throughout the years that expressed interest in getting a small/medium pickup so they had something to haul stuff "when they needed". Every time I mentioned how a mini-van would probably fit their needs better, they eventually agreed on the merits, but admitted they wouldn't buy one.
The truth is, very few people are entirely rational about their vehicles, and most of us are nowhere near rational. This truck may or may not be useful and used at work sites, where the business may act in a more rational manner, but I think that has little to do with whether individuals buying their own work truck (e.g. professional carpenters, electricians, plumbers, etc that work for companies too small to provide a fleet of trucks so use their own) will make their decisions on a more personal level, at least after their basic needs are met.
I think the point I'm making is that a work truck is more about efficiency and ease of use. Having to open a door and sift through a bunch of tool bags or whatever isn't going to be fun, fast, or easy. Same with the bed - I would not want to get into the bed of a truck and go to the very back to get my tools every time. And if I had loaded the bed with something - I'm really gonna be feeling the crunch.
A van can be a good work vehicle as well but I think for a lot of tasks - it's not the right one. Getting in and out of the van is an issue. And if you make it to where you're not getting in and out of the van then you're ultimately not utilizing the space fully. (Unless it opens from all sides I guess - but then you're dealing with doors again unless they fold onto the body all the way)
The article is mostly condemning conspicuous consumption - not really relevant to the points here.
Unless you're hauling bulk building material (plywood, sheetrock, soil, rock, brick, etc) I think a van is likely to be superior on all counts (and if may be superior for non-loose material like plywood and sheetrock still). Anything you can go to the back of a truck for, you can go to the back of a van for, but you can actually have multiple levels of items there if you set it up that way. Anything you would acess over the side of a truck bed should be easily accessed through a side door. A van can also support a small workspace within it, if that benefits your job. Since there's no wind or elements, you can store stuff in open topped containers inside, making access easier while still being secure and secured. You can also get a much larger cargo area in a van that in a work truck of the same size, being it easier to maneuver.
Unless you are top-loading something, there's very few things I can think of that a truck does better than a van. It's certainly possible you have more real world experience than me and can think of some things I'm glossing over though.
It's already quite awkward getting in and out of trucks so this is something of a solved problem. For tools and gear there are already solutions for getting things deep in the bed of the truck.
This looks more like an SUV alternative than a truck alternative, for either the legitimately eco-conscious (but not eco-conscious enough to buy used) or those looking for certain social signaling.
> in that market how important are the extra cargo pounds or trailer capacity?
Not really important. What's important is that it _look_ like it can haul stuff. Like most Ford F-1-2-whatevers, Rams and other pickups, most of the time they're empty and car-wash clean.
I actually like the looks of the Tesla pickup. It's about time they went more avant-garde with their designs. This is supposed to be the future, dammit, Mr Musk's other company makes spaceships. Why NOT futuristic cars instead of Lexus look-alikes?
Sure, embrace the future. But it looks like something out of Mad Max, attenuated with the macho looking guys piling out of it. It has a very "me against the dangerous world" tone, something Musk has expressed before (in denigrating public transportation). It's a very aggressive introduction, highlighting the worst aspects of private vehicles, and a very poor direction to set.
The top-end model also nearly doubles the price and puts it in an entirely different class of competition. The $50k Cybertruck, comparable in price to something like the F-150 Raptor or Tacoma TRD Pro, is "only" 300 mile range. At the top-end model's $70k you're deep into Ford Super Duty territory
That's not true. I watched the whole video and their charging practices were a joke. They knew they were driving too fast, they knew they didn't charge enough before they left.
In any case, from 500 miles with 10% degradation, 10% reservation, and 50% inefficiency due to towing you're still going to get 200 miles. Most superchargers are within 50-100 miles of each other. Ezpz.
At 250 miles with those same metrics, you're at 100 miles of range. Sure you don't want to go cross country but you can make the haul if you want to.
The biggest problem is going to be trucks with trailers hogging the whole bank of chargers so they don't have to detach their trailer.
TFL is a joke. They don't even know that you can open a Model 3 charge port by tapping at it. That is after owning the car for weeks. AFTER they were shown how to do so, when they took delivery.
They were bitching that it's so inconvenient because they thought you have to use the app. That's seems disingenuous t me.
You don't get anywhere near rated milage/ range on a normal truck when hauling loads either. The truth is even for work trucks, most trucks spend 80+% of the time lightly loaded or empty.
The issue with lumber racks and the apparent inability to haul larger items is a much bigger concern for "Work Trucks".
I see this as something which I can haul 3-4 friends and their bikes up to the trailhead in (or skiing/ camping/ fishing) and it seems pretty reasonably set up for that.
BTW, you're ignoring potentially huge cost savings with gas. Trucks are notoriously gas guzzling, many people spending 2-500 a month in gas. Cost would drop dramatically if you could plugin every night and wake up with a full 'tank'.
Trucks are gas guzzlers as compared to gas sedans. There’s no reason an electric truck of similar utility wouldn’t be similarly an electricity guzzler without making some sacrifices. The only benefit is that all-electric brings significant torque improvements even at low horsepower, but with modern turbochargers low-rpm torque has long been solved (my 2.0T sedan can tow!) and people won’t stop “horsepower shopping” just because the torque numbers are high as it’s mainly for bragging rights anyway.
Sure, it will guzzle electricity, which is still way cheaper than guzzling gas. The more energy being consumed the better the electric vehicle equation looks. This is why Tesla's semitrailer tractor is exciting.
Horsepower is just a proxy for 0-60 anyway. People shop for the experience, not the numbers, even if they end up at the numbers.
Eh, doesn't have to be this way. What we need are smaller, lighter trucks; this message seems to have been missed by Ford who have released a new Ranger that's bigger than the F150 used to be.
This isn't something I'm ignoring, not having to deal with fuel ups and maintenance is one of the big reasons I've wanted to buy an electric car for several years. But every time I've priced a Tesla in the past, the premium for electric has been too high for me. That's what really caught my eye about this.
If this had been available 3 years ago when I bought my truck it would have been an instant purchase. As it is, I'm likely to sell my current truck and buy this when it comes out.
12000 miles a year at 13mpg and 2.5$ gas is $2308 per year. With a 5 year ownership time you are saving only [$11500-charging electricity costs]. So mid range $57000 AWD becomes $45500. Still pricey for most people.
I'd rather them come out with totally utilitarian bare bones truck but with the range and basic capabilities for $25K or so. THAT would be a game changer in the SUV/Truck space.
There are additional TCO for internal combustion vehicles that EVs do not have, such as maintenance on a vastly more complex set of components. If you amortize the costs of the EV over ten years you would likely see double the savings you cite.
Look at that interior of the Tesla, and tell me that there's not a huge set of complex components. Imagine the repair costs on the stainless steel structure. No body shop is set up for this.
If you want simple, low maintenance, a 2WD Silverado with a small block is as simple as it gets. You do what? Change the oil and coolant every now and then? Flush the transmission a couple times through it's life? If you stick with what's actually practical, ICEs are extremely reliable and have very little maintenance these days. People get hundreds of thousands of miles without so much as an over the air update...
Also, I can do all this maintenance myself on a Silverado. Pop the drain plug, and then refill with fluid. Can you even do your own flush on the cooling system in a Tesla without voiding your warranty?
Last time I heard, insuring a Tesla is more expensive. And wait times for repairs can be ridiculously long (and expensive). For a work truck, unpredictable down-time is a serious problem. Might have changed though.
I didn't like the looks of this thing when I saw it, probably because it looks so different.
But after appreciating all the awesome engineering that went into it, I find myself loving the scifi look. Finally a vehicle designed for geeks like me. I had always thought it sad that stainless steel vehicles never caught on. Here's my chance, and built from the same material as a space ship, that's icing on the cake. This is for sure my next vehicle.
Not if you have to do a number of laps, though. Heat issues, etc. - the M3 is nearly track ready off the lot, the Tesla is really just a luxury car that happens to go fast from time to time.
Is the base Model 3 giving the BMW M3 a run for its money, or a higher end Model 3?
Regardless, the M3 isn't exactly the pinnacle of bang-for-your-buck speed. You are paying a big premium on the BMW for fit & finish which is miles ahead of the Model 3.
But when I wrote about the pricing on the Model 3 I was thinking more in terms of utility, not pure performance. If the job to be done is driving to work, the M3 isn't the car I'm looking at. It's the Honda Civic.
When I’m hauling around a 10,000 pound airstream trailer on highways that 500 miles becomes 250 and 250 becomes 125 on flat land. Now consider going uphill on mountains and the range drops even more. There’s a real possibility of being stranded with no place left to charge in the middle of nowhere where I could be easily killed without anyone even knowing.
I don't think it's as extreme as you're making it seem. Going uphill on mountains means you're going downhill which not only doesn't use power but regenerates power to the battery. It's obviously not insignificant of a cost but adding a trailer doesn't immediately halve the usable range.
>Going uphill on mountains means you're going downhill which not only doesn't use power but regenerates power to the battery.
If you are pulling a trailer (let's say a camping trailer) you are likely going to stay a few days at a place before returning home and going down those hills you went up.
That's OK. It's not like the potential energy goes away just because you stay overnight. Plus there's a solar panel for all that power you are going to use while making hot toddies in the camper.
You vastly overestimate solar power. There’s no way you’ll get an appreciable charge on your Tesla battery using solar panels. It’s enough to run things in your trailer, but no way will you charge a Tesla in any reasonable time. I suppose if you are stranded with no way to charge you could get enough to go somewhere after a few days of constant charging, but that’s an emergency situation.
> It's obviously not insignificant of a cost but adding a trailer doesn't immediately halve the usable range.
It probably would through aerodynamic drag at the same speed but if you're planning on towing you can just drive slower (65 instead of 80) to make up for it.
Barring something like a city decimating earthquake - for every foot you ascend, you must also descend. There is just as much uphill as downhill. This is true for any trip with any two destinations on the planet (a round trip between a beginning and a destination). This is equivalent to conservation of potential energy in physics.
There are a lot of mountains in the US where you're going to spend hours driving up steep inclines. I used to live on the wrong end of a 2 hour uphill drive with one gas station in the middle. That road was steep enough that even a gasoline car couldn't make the trip without a full tank of gas.
I drive through mountains all the time, and have to fill up my car all the time. GP didn't say anything about multiple stops; what I inferred (because it's literally what he said) was that you can have unequal ascending and descending on a round trip - which is geometrically impossible! And even if we are talking about having to stop and get gas, you still get the same benefit of regenerative braking when you are descending, whether it be the first half or the second half of the trip.
Have you never been up a mountain? You can go up one very steep portion at 45 degree incline and then come out the other side going on a very long down hill at like 5 degree decline, basically flat.
It doesn't matter. The battery is still regenerating on the way down until you're back at the start point. A less steep angle might even be better because there's no potential to lose energy since the battery can only regen so much at a given time.
My truck goes from 22 mpg to 10 mpg when I hook up my RV. Utility trailers aren't nearly so bad, but an RV trailer is like an open parachute behind you.
Towing puts a toll on any vehicle's gas mileage, and you can run out of gas in a normal truck too. Tesla's have range indicators built in and let you know how far you are from the nearest charging station. Turns out people who are traveling pay at least a little attention to vehicle range, particularly when hauling a load. This isn't unique to electric vehicles, regular trucks fuel economy goes way down with a load as well and gas stations are often few and far between in the mountains.
Several of Musk's numbers don't add up. No pickup has a bed capacity of 3500 pounds. That's 1.75 tons. Even full sized US pickups top out at 3/4 ton, unless they're super duty which adds greatly to weight and lowers MPG painfully. A 1.75 ton load, especially raised as high up as shown in this prototype, would flip the truck in the slightest of turns. 3500 is surely a fake number.
Second, this is going to be a very heavy truck, 6000 pounds or more. No truck with thick stainless steel body panels can weigh less than 5500 pounds. How that much weight can deliver 250 to 500 miles of range... sounds like fantasy #2. Apparently Musk is imagining that battery technology will advance a lot before this thing ships. Or he's just making stuff up.
Finally, the claim that the bed will extend to the ground to form a useful ramp. Nah. These folks have never lived with a pickup. No object heavier than a bicycle is going to make it up that 45 degree incline and into the bed without crashing into the cab before it can stop, especially given the polished floor of the demo truck. That's fantasy #3. No telling how much more reality distortion lies beneath that funky exterior.
> How that much weight can deliver 250 to 500 miles of range... sounds like fantasy #2.
This falls into the category of put up or shut up. Tesla has bad track record of hitting deadlines, but a really good track record of hitting their range estimates. If they don't hit 250 miles on the base model, we're sure to hear about it when it's launched.
> Finally, the claim that the bed will extend to the ground to form a useful ramp. Nah. These folks have never lived with a pickup.
If you don't see the value in being able to tilt the truck bed then you've clearly never used a pickup to it's capacity.
I've bought 4 major appliances lately and hauled several tons of lumber, concrete, & gravel. Even without the ramps, Being able to tilt the bed down to unload the truck sounds like a fucking godsend to me. Particularly for loose loads and lumber where it would act a bit like a dump truck.
> A 1.75 ton load, especially raised as high up as shown in this prototype, would flip the truck in the slightest of turns.
The battery in this truck is probably incredibly heavy, which really moves the center of mass down. The suspension is also computer controlled, and at high loads you could lower the vehicle to be closer to the ground. Carrying 3500 pounds off road isn't a good idea even if the vehicle can corner so you don't need the clearance.
Actually I think your overestimating the total weight, but it goes to the above point when you say
> Second, this is going to be a very heavy truck, 6000 pounds or more.
> Musk is imagining that battery technology will advance a lot before this thing ships
Unlikely, more likely he is just planning on putting a lot of battery in it. Unlike you, Musk has lots of engineers working on this and has a pretty damn good idea of what is possible.
Pickup trucks are ideal for packing a lot of battery, lots of space along the bottom to do so.
> Finally, the claim that the bed will extend to the ground to form a useful ramp. Nah. These folks have never lived with a pickup. No object heavier than a bicycle is going to make it up that 45 degree incline and into the bed without crashing into the cab before it can stop, especially given the polished floor of the demo truck. That's fantasy #3. No telling how much more reality distortion lies beneath that funky exterior.
ROFL - you realized they literally live demoed doing so on a ATV right?
Moreover, the main use of ramps, at least in my mind having unloaded and loaded a pickup truck, is making it easier to move heavy objects in and out by hand.
I'm pretty sure the only person fantasizing here is you.
I was wrong too in thinking that no mainstream pickup has a 3000+ pound payload. It turns out the F150 does (in its maxed out config), so the Cybertruck's 3500 payload isn't necessarily that implausible.
I know a lot of folks are walking away from the puzzling aesthetic but I think that’s the point. Existing Tesla owners with a taste for existing design cues won’t push Tesla sales any further. They’ve got to expand the demographic and this design has a chance to do this.
Think of all the wrangler, hummer, truck buyers who want a militaristic, rough, unpolished steel look and this is that flavor taken to an extreme.
Other buyers still have the S3XYs to choose from so we can all have our favorite toys from the same company. No cannibalization.
Whether people may like this exterior design or not, it's a display of bravery from Tesla to steer away from old conventional shapes and forms. Strong innovative design deviations like this should be praised.
my assumption was that people who ride this kind of car want to stand out in the first place. Most pick up trucks and other kind of trucks all look pretty weird like the slideshow at the start. Square cars, weird dimensions, etc. I think they're appealing to the right demographic here
>my assumption was that people who ride this kind of car want to stand out in the first place.
Every single Tesla vehicle I've seen in the wild here in Indiana has had a vanity plate, my favorite being Indiana plate "5TAR 5HP" a few weeks ago driving home from work, here she is https://imgur.com/gallery/YGhwGYV
This thing looks like straight out of a sci-fi movie. I think the aesthetic is going to get them a lot of sales. If I had use for a car, this would be at the very top of my list, purely based on the looks.
I hated it at first. But the more I look at it, the more I like it. It's crazy and totally memeable, like a cross between Guy Fieri, Cosmo Kramer, and Jeff Goldblum.
I bet they'll get a ton of sales from people buying it ironically. Which, when you think about it, is why many people buy trucks in the first place - very few are buying it for utility.
Yup. You need to apply only very little imagination here - this is just a paint job away from designs used in half of the sci-fi series of the last 20 years.
I wonder about that alloy decision. Starship needs to be strong at cryogenic temperatures, and strong after being used as a heatshield to burn off energy from an interplanetary orbit. Both temperatures change the properties of the material it's made out of considerably.
Is the same alloy really also the best at everyday -50 to 50 (c) temperatures?
You also need to look at the Eastern market - Chinese/Middle East markets are apparently what is driving the outrageous size of BMW's grills, and many other extreme design elements currently en vogue.
In the Middle East the Land Cruiser V8 is king. It's not because of looks (although IMO they don't look bad), but what it can do.
Can you use this to overtake someone on the hard shoulder (half covered in sand) and go bumming around sand dunes? That's what Tesla have got to do to win there.
Wow, clearly I'm showing my age here because I can't find a picture either. Back in the 80s a gonzo ball was a bouncy ball cast into a roughly round, irregular polyhedron so that when it hit the ground it bounced at some unpredictable angle.
Flat panel is what trucks have needed to go back to. Get a bad dent or the garbage is rusting out? Cut it out and weld some sheet on top. No need buy an entire door or go to a body shop.
Not immediately but if this thing is as indestructible as it looks, after 10 years of hard use, new battery pack, it's not hard to imagine that it'll be fixed by welding steel panels on it.
This is the first time I have seen a production vehicle's design to be less realistic (in terms of usability, component reuse, artistic freedom, etc) than it's artistic renders.
Here's a few artist imagined renders, and to be honest, they would be a lot less likely to get an April 1st calendar check reaction:
Whether it looks hideous or not would still depend on personal preferences though. I like the fact that it looks, well like a concept car, but it isn't.
The divisiveness of this design is precisely what will propel its success. It's the coolest production car I've ever seen. And I expect >50% of the population to strongly disagree, mostly people from different generations. "Appalling" designs get free viral marketing; the trick is to still appeal to enough of your target market.
This truck gets attention. It's a loud status statement that looks cheap to build, costs less than $50k. Well done Tesla.
This thread already has more comments than anything I've seen in months. The design is absolutely doing its job as a marketing tool.
Some people will love it, some people will hate it, a lot of people are probably just kind of confounded by it but will come to like it after they see a few in person.
Either way it's absolutely dominating a news cycle, which isn't easy to do.
I actually like this design because it's not the same old boring style of nearly every other vehicle these days, but I've always been pretty nonconformist.
What really stood out to me is the truck bed and the way the ramp pulls (or folds?) out. It actually seems very sensible and well designed, despite looking like it's trying too hard to be different.
And the sides of the bed of the truck come down at an angle so you can't lean over the side to grab something out of the bed or sit on the side of the bed. Strapping things down at an angle like that will be difficult as well.
It's tough in unimportant ways but weak when it comes to the bed which is arguably the most important feature of a truck.
I think this vehicle is better described as a crossover. For a crossover its not as ugly to me because I'm not hung up on the design decision to neuter the bed. But as a truck it looks like they chose a really terrible looking form over function.
A week is too long to be out of commission -- most parts for a Ford/GM/Dodge/Toyota, especially stuff that gets damaged are <2 hours away for like 10 years. Tesla's vertical model is a liability for a work scenario.
My dad loves his Honda Ridgeline. He can put his trash in the bed to take to the dump, put the dogs back there if needed, and tow a lawnmower over to some elderly people he helps out. But it is essentially an "El Camino" hack of a Honda minivan with jacked up suspension.
A Tesla work truck would be awesome -- they should sell a cab and shell that a third party can customize.
I feel like this is aimed as a similar demographic as the Ridgeline is: people who want a lot of flexibility out of their vehicle, but don't need a dedicated workhorse.
A friend of mine has a Ridgeline, too. The thing is great. Goes off-road, just about anywhere he wants to go, hauls skiing/camping gear for 4 people with room to spare, hauls 2 motorcycles and a dirt bike in the bed.
He's not hauling a horse trailer, or a boat, or following a TRD Pro 4Runner into the desert. If something breaks, he fixes it or rides his second vehicle until he can get it fixed.
People are acting like Tesla needs every farmer and construction worker to replace their diesel truck with the Cybertruck. If they didn't replace it with a Ridgeline (or similar unibody truck), the Cybertruck isn't for them.
What's not safe about it? The truck drives itself, and on day one Tesla autopilot will have already statistically proven itself as a far safer driver than a human.
I'd buy this one in a minute if I had the need for a truck. It's so beautiful. I totally dig into this retro futuristic design. Wish they made a car like that. Tesla is killing it.
I absolutely love the design! It's so new, so unique, and so bold where as I am not certain I'd be able to tell a ford a chevy and a ram apart without their logos
Don't be ridiculous. The US has no pedestrian safety standards whatsoever. In a sane world, the NHTSA would have outlawed bull bars and required trucks to have sideguards.
The US is one of the most anti-pedestrian countries I've been to. Everywhere else I've been to, drivers are supposed to watch out for pedestrians crossing the road. In the US, they've managed to make it illegal!
In CO drivers must yield to pedestrians in cross walks. Now many drivers don't know this so resort cities put up flashing lights and warning sides for drivers. Personally, I've gotten use to the angry, honking drivers when I'm in the crosswalk but no one in their right mind is going to risk actually hitting a pedestrian.
The laws on the books are more so that if a pedestrian steps off a curb or crosses suddenly somewhere other than a crosswalk, drivers aren't immediately crucified by the law. For example, if the speed limit is 45mph with an adjacent sidewalk, how are drivers suppose to stop for any given pedestrian that jaywalks without looking? Additionally, if a vehicle has to maneuver out the way to avoiding hitting someone, they become a danger to other vehicles and even other pedestrians.
Except in areas where jaywalking is a huge hazard (i.e near homeless shelters in urban areas), it's not like people are actually getting ticketed for jaywalking.
Vehicles must yield to pedestrians in cross-walks in just about or all states it seems. I didn't read every single one in that PDF but i skimmed it.
In some states:
"Vehicles must yield to pedestrian in crosswalk on vehicle’s half of road or close to it. Pedestrians must not step off curb and into path of vehicle when vehicle does not have time to stop"
Where exactly have you been? It's definitely illegal to cross the street outside designated pedestrian crossings (where available) where I live - and you will get fined if you're impeding traffic by doing so and are seen by the police.
>(c) In order to cross the carriageway elsewhere than at a pedestrian crossing signposted as such or indicated by markings on the carriageway, pedestrians shall not step on to the carriageway without first making sure that they can do so without impeding vehicular traffic.
>(d) Once they have started to cross a carriageway, pedestrians shall not take an unnecessarily long route, and shall not linger or stop on the carriageway unnecessarily.
That means "don't step into traffic". It doesn't mean "you're not allowed to cross the road unless there's a pedestrian crossing". Crossing the road outside of marked pedestrian crossings is perfectly legal here (Germany).
"(3) Persons on foot shall rapidly cross lanes on the shortest path transverse to the direction of travel, taking into account vehicle traffic. If traffic density, speed, visibility or traffic flow so require, a carriageway may only be crossed at crossings or junctions, at traffic lights within markings, at pedestrian crossing aids or on pedestrian crossings (sign 293). If the carriageway is crossed at crossings or junctions, pedestrian crossings or markings at traffic lights shall always be used." - translated with deepl from https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stvo_2013/__25.html
That's not illegal here (the UK), and the link you've posted seems to simply recommend using a crossing where one is available nearby (which is mostly common sense).
I don't see how this advice implies that laws are in place?
It's nice to say that, but enforcement generally doesn't reflect it. Failing to yield to (or killing) a pedestrian on the road outside of a crosswalk often has no legal consequences.
"I didn't see them!" is such a common response for bicyclist and pedestrian deaths, it makes me sick. In 95% of cases, drivers are either distracted, driving too fast for conditions, or not fit to be driving.
This is definitely not true. I got hit by a car while crossing at an intersection (I had a green light, but no walk signal). The police report said I was at fault.
I hate this answer so much. The US has 300 million people with diverse interests. About 40% of the countries GDP is spend by the government and the rest is regulated.
With that money the government does A LOT of different things, from creating special interest groups to increase salad prices for farmers in <random state> to fighting a long term geopolitical battle with China.
You can vote a couple of times, meaning you can make like 4 choices a year to effect those things. Meaning your opinion about ALL of these has to be condensed to like 4 choices, and those choices are incredibly restricted by a party system.
And with almost none of the 300 million people car safety regulation is in the Top 100 of issues they care about means that the democratic process has almost zero direct impact on a particular topic.
In your average State: Senator, US Rep, State upper house, State lower house, President, Governor, DA, State AG, State Treasurer, Lt. Governor, County Rep, City Rep, probably the Mayor (depending on if strong or weak Mayor), Sheriff and/or Police Chief and a few others. You might even get to deal with ballot propositions! The exact makeup of your ballot will vary from State to State, but there’s usually at least 7 or 8 positions you’re directly electing (notably Nebraska has a unicameral legislature, so no upper house).
We get choices. A lot of choices. The people concerned with prosecuting jaywalking aren’t the same people concerned with prosecuting trade wars. I jaywalk all the time in my city, at red lights, outside crossings, across the intersection, and often right in front of the police as long as I keep my wits about me and don’t do so in a way liable to get me killed.
Maybe stop looking to DC for all your legislative needs unless you live there. We need far less centralization of power, not more.
Well, that's just state driving law. They're talking about design standards. That said, this thing fails in one way for sure... they can't have their brake lights on the tailgate like that. That does not meet the standards. So, there will definitely have to be some design changes before this becomes final.
That was my immediate thought. Granted, I've not watched the video as I'm at work so if it was covered then I've not seen it, but that thing looks like it has absolutely no crumple zones, and the lack of curved surfaces would cause horrific injury in a pedestrian collision.
Tesla Model S and 3 in terms of collision safety are the safest cars ever sold in America. There is a giant crumple zone where the engine would be in an ICE vehicle. The Cybertruck will be the same.
Those are not made out of this apparently super-hard steel. This thing's sales pitch sounds more like a tank than a car.
But yes, as sibling replies have pointed out, I was more aghast as the fact that the US does not give one iota of fuck about pedestrian safety, apparently. Here, you can (theoretically, granted) get fined for attaching a bullbar that compromises the pedestrian safety, for example by changing how a pedestrian bends when impacted by the front of the car and in doing so increasing the risk of spinal or other injury to the pedestrian.
My comment was largely a critique of the differing approaches to road safety.
I mean I don't have proof positive that it doesn't meet those requirements, but if it doesn't do so then yes, at least here in AU if it doesn't meet those requirements then you simply cannot register them and therefore they're not road legal.
You could technically still buy one, just as you can a non-road-legal track car, but that's it.
No they aren’t. Model 3 doesn’t score perfect in the all the IIHS injury categories which Mercedes, Lexus, and Volvo do for the vehicle class. It got the top pick but so did 15+ other models.
I guess for pedestrian impacts it does not matter what the frame is build from. It's the shell. Because if you (as pedestrian) already went through the aluminum shell, chances are you are already pretty much done :(
Not meant to be mainstream. It's meant to be f'ing tough and show how much of a beast the electric vehicle can be. Really takes the air out of being 'Built Ford Tough' Likely just following the Roadster play book. Get the toughness doubters out of the way, then a more traditional truck to follow.
Does it not being mainstream even matter, though? Because at least here in AU, and I believe in the EU, to even register it as roadworthy it needs to not compromise its collision protection which includes pedestrian collisions.
Naturally. Even here in AU, the people that buy US-sized utes tend to be in the vast minority. I'm sure it's a negligable market that they can safely ignore, it was just an interesting thing to note as an outsider.
I guess it’s a good thing that trucks like this aren’t really a thing in the EU.
They exist, but I don’t know anyone who has ever owned or rented one. They’re hard to find, dealerships don’t tend to have them so you’d have to find a specialist importer I reckon.
Most commercial dealers will have them - the same places you'd go to buy a van (in the UK at least). I've used them for work in a couple of contexts (usually Mazda ones for whatever reason) and they've been great.
Even then, I'm not sure they're that common. Most contractors/plumbers/movers/etc will have a Transit or something similar. There are a few, farms sometimes have them, but I would find it strange to see one parked outside someones house.
In urban areas, yes. In rural areas- in Greece they're like a stereotype, farmers with pickup trucks. I know at least one person who has a pimped-up one with rollbars (bullbars?) and big lights and so on.
> In urban areas, yes. In rural areas- in Greece they're like a stereotype, farmers with pickup trucks. I know at least one person who has a pimped-up one with rollbars (bullbars?) and big lights and so on.
Not to mention the farmers who buy these sorts of vehicles in Europe tend to value durability, reliability and ease of maintenance. From what I can tell, they all drive around in old Hiluxes.
Having been stung by John Deere already, farmers aren't going to fall over themselves to buy something that they don't own, can't fix themselves and will likely be in the dealer for months if it breaks.
Not a whole lot but you do see them. Naturally, nobody ever uses it for working neither catched one ever hauling a payload. But they do look really great.
It's like somebody else already said, it's just too big to park. Subterranean parkings that are the norm in European cities are pretty much impossible with them.
Tesla pedestrian collision warning is dangerously ineffective. It passes some tests with flying colors and completely fails other pedestrian safety tests.
It's not an easy feature to test. A lot of magazines have used really fake looking inflatable or cardboard people. Radar systems are going to see those really well. Machine vision solutions may correctly classify the objects as non-human. You don't want your emergency breaks to go off every time a plastic bag floats in-front of your car.
Sure, but a manufacturer couldn't sell a car with a solid steel bumper. In the US you have lots of freedom to modify your car after you buy it, but manufacturers have strict regulations.
An interesting point: the oneupmanship game of aftermarket car customization will be the worst deficiency this thing has in terms of appealing to what I presume must be the target audience. Perhaps a radically modular interior could partially make up for the lack of exhaust systems etc to replace with custom counterparts? (the "back to the future air intakes" joke will get old very fast)
>Does the US not have pedestrian safety standards?
I don't know what it is like outside of the United States but here everyone has the common sense to know "don't walk in front of moving vehicles" as you are taught as a child "look both ways before crossing" over and over and over.
You can put all of safety features you want on a vehicle, but if they hit a pedestrian there is a VERY good chance they will die. That's a lot of force and a little bit of rubber or plastic won't make a lot of difference, I say this as someone that lost a very dear friend to a hit and run as a pedestrian and lost another friend this year that was stationary on her motorcycle and someone rear-ended her and killed her (effectively) instantly.
One was killed while on another vehicle... the other was killed by yet unidentified hit and run driver that was likely impaired at a speed great enough it launched her body more than ten feet into a field, to be found days after the fact and needing to be identified by dental records, almost certainly ending her life at the second of impact with the vehicle and if not she would have died from the impact with the ground.
Cars versus people not in another car, often result in death regardless of any little piece of plastic or rubber you put on a car. Plastic and rubber added makes the driver feel better, it does little to protect people.
As a truck guy who has owned a lot of trucks and currently owns a 2017 Ram 2500 CTD 4x4 and a Land Rover Defender 110, I'm telling you right now: this is going to kill it. This is the suburban status item of 2022.
I want to buy this right now. This has nearly the towing capacity of my Ram and will smoke my wife's Audi on the track.
> As a truck guy who has owned a lot of trucks and currently owns a 2017 Ram 2500 CTD 4x4 and a Land Rover Defender 110, I'm telling you right now: this is going to kill it.
We'll see.
If it does kill, the looks won't be a problem, they'll be an asset - a more extreme version of the Prius.
But if it doesn't, a lot of people will blame the look.
This demographic will love the look. Have you seen pickups lately? The Big 3 have been chasing an industrial aesthetic for years. This was a very bold move and I feel very strongly that this will shake up the market.
The specs are a truck lover's dream. Most pickups are driving office dudes like me to our office jobs every day. We hate the gas mileage but we love the look and we want something powerful enough to tow the boat or ATV hauler on the weekends. This truck claims it can do that AND beat a Porsche off the traffic light AND never have to visit a fuel pump again.
Have a model Y on order... was waiting to see what this would look like as I've got an older truck I'm kind of sick of maintaining and I fall square into "the demographic" you speak of. This is maybe the ugliest truck I've ever seen in my life. I desperately wanted Tesla to come out with a 3/4 ton frame and a semi-normal looking truck. Instead... this. This is 100% NOT what the big 3 have been chasing, and this isn't shaking up the market. I just hope it doesn't bankrupt Tesla in the process... Here's hoping the final product looks a LOT different than what they had on stage tonight...
Can I ask where you are located, or what kind of truck owners you know? I can't see anyone, like 0% of the rural owners I know, thinking this truck looks good. It's crazy, I would be embarrassed to be seen in it.
There are other electrified truck companies bringing up their models. Maybe even faster than Tesla can get this thing out. Ford is already testing their electrified F150's. Current owners will just buy their same brand when it becomes electrified.
One thing that could really hurt Tesla down the road is the new platform-architectures existing car-makers are coming up with. Pick-Ups in the US are one example, another one is the new Peogeot / Opel Corsa plattform in Europe. The latter one, while not a dedicated EV-plattform, is able to be used for both, EVs and ICE-powered cars. Granted, these small EVs are still rather expensive but offer a ton of extras and are with sibisidies under 35k €. Big bonus, they are produced at the same assembly lines as the big-volume ICEs. So once demand for EVs increases they can easily switch, with economies of scale these small EVs are becoming cheaper and scaling volumes won't be such a big issue neither. I guess the same can apply for pick-ups in the US. And than again, Tesla never had one single face-lift or model replacement behind them.
Said it before and I stick with it: It's a race between tesla coming up with a sustainable and profitable way to mass produce EVs before money runs out and incumbents figuring out the design of EVs that can be mass-produced at existing facilities. tesla had a huge head-start, but incumbents are catching up and the window of opportunity for Tesla is closing but not closed yet.
The Tesla truck thing has always surprised me a bit since it feels like a misreading of the audience.
When I think of the people that like big trucks, I think of the people blocking super chargers or blowing black smoke out the back onto Teslas. People that hate EVs because of a tribal political affiliation. This is the group that cares about status and argues over Ford vs. Chevy.
Outside of those people are the ones just doing regular work and I think they just want a regular looking truck to put things in (not the market).
Honestly don’t know the market for this one. I love my model3, but I’m unsure of this.
>The Tesla truck thing has always surprised me a bit since it feels like a misreading of the audience.
I watched the stream. My impression was "someone made a truck, designed and marketed it based on my preferences when I was 19."
If they had done this in 1999, I totally would have bought it.
But then I wasn't the sort of guy who bought pick up trucks. I was the sort of guy who got beat up by the sort of guy who bought pick up trucks. (I mean, by 19 I had a real job in a much larger city and was away from all that, but... the memories were very fresh.)
But that's the thing, even if this is totally unappealing to the sort of people who currently buy pickup trucks... this is appealing to a completely different group of people who currently would not consider a pickup truck.
This might explain the bad goth 'neuromancer' cosplay. to get someone like 19 year old me to buy a pickup, you need to overcome the associations with pickup trucks. and... yeah, that's going to alienate the existing pickup truck drivers.
While they may stand out, only a tiny percentage of pickup truck drivers are like this.
There are so many people who have desk jobs or jobs where they don't really need or only occasionally need a pickup, but they still drive one (at least where I grew up, in Northern California). Because of the Tesla truck's performance, and many other EV advantages, my guess is that this pickup truck will indeed appeal to a large number of pickup owners, including showboaters, occasional towers, occasional use daily drivers, as professional/hardcore customers.
Exactly. My F150 bed currently contains 6 egg boxes of children's clothes to donate, two folding chairs, a foot locker sized rubbermaid container filled with emergency gear & camping stuff, a large Patagonia duffel full of sports clothes, a smaller duffel with cleats & soccer ball, two pairs of basketball shoes + ball, an extra jacket and a large umbrella. Yes, I don't need to keep all this crap in the truck all the time, but it sure is convenient to have that option!
I largely agree with your points, but anecdotally, I want one.
I have wanted a truck for a while since I like the look/'pretend' utility (but don't like the tribal-association of trucks). This is so ugly its a statement item, but its a Tesla so its still a status symbol. Its fast (so I don't have to compromise on that bmw/audi) and it can haul shit if I ever need that.
Hi, F-350 owner here. My wife and I's other car is a Prius.
In addition to woodworking and desiring a truck bed for that, we tow a camper with which we can boondock (dry/off-grid camp) via solar power. I purchase carbon offset credits for our trips. Not ideal, but better than nothing. I have not modified my truck in any way, especially not to "roll coal", and I report others that I see doing that. I take pride in my truck passing emissions tests and would never attempt to defeat ("delete") those controls. I would never consider blocking a charging station, and in fact we almost bought the Prius Prime plug-in hybrid when it was first released but it wasn't available in our area yet at the time. Otherwise my other car would need those chargers. We also take the Prius as much as possible, and only use the truck when necessary. I enjoy hypermiling in the Prius, too. I hate that diesel trucks like mine create other non-carbon pollution like NOx so I try to only drive it when needed, and would gladly adopt new hardware to reduce those emissions further if it didn't hurt overall efficiency. I also would love for carbon-neutral (or at least carbon-reduced) biodiesel that doesn't come from destroying palm tree forests to be an option until EV trucks are more available. I have other truck-owning friends that are also not obnoxious intentional polluters that hate EVs. Anecdotally at least, my friends and I are the exact market for the Tesla Cybertruck. My gut feeling is that there are more truck owners that think Teslas are cool and want one than those that block charging stations.
I guess my point is, next time you pull up behind a heavy-duty truck, it could be me, a vegetarian EV/hybrid lover driving a carbon-offset, emissions-compliant truck on their way to go off-grid camp via solar power, waiting for the Cybertruck to launch.
I am excited about the potential of EV trucks and a Tesla truck especially. Absolutely I'll consider it once it's reviewed well and it actually ships. After the Model 3 situation I'm not going to put down a deposit or anything, I'll wait and see. But it's certainly a vehicle I'd strongly consider switching to.
I think this is going to be more of a fleet niche -- companies and gov't agencies that have a ZEV requirement for some percentage of their fleets, such as in California.
For rural/agricultural uses... EV doesn't make sense until range is fixed. 500 miles is certainly good enough for most applications, though, so maybe my thinking is out of date.
For urban contractors/builders etc., an EV truck does make sense; they're not typically going to drive more than 50-100 miles in a day. Then it comes down to cost, though; your average plumber or electrician isn't going to plop down $70K for the 3-motor AWD 500 mile range model.
For general rough-and-ready pickup drivers, the Tesla comes across as too exotic and weird looking. Those guys (and I think it's almost all guys) are going to wait until their F-150 or RAM wears out, then buy another one used. Or they're going to wait for a more "normal" looking EV truck that has decent range and off-road capability.
I'm thinking the rural/agricultural market might be quite a factor - I was pretty excited about the pneumatic option, if it can work as a small tractor that needs fewer repairs and recharges for pennies, it could catch on no matter what people think of the aesthetic.
> When I think of the people that like big trucks, I think of the people blocking super chargers or blowing black smoke out the back onto Teslas. People that hate EVs because of a tribal political affiliation. This is the group that cares about status and argues over Ford vs. Chevy.
That's a surprisingly narrow minded world view. Are there walking stereotypes of comically evil rednecks who blow black smoke and hate on gays 10 times a day while being racist? I've met some, very few in fact and I live in a place where I go to see rodeo 3 times a year. Is that majority of truck owners? Not even close.
Where I live trucks are a sort of "I make good money I can afford one" vehicles. All young men want to have one! Tesla's truck fits the bill so well with young city dwelling men who grew up on 80's sci-fi, who love new tech and toys, and who want to proclaim "I am successful! I can afford this ridiculous over the top TRUCK"
I have been 'coal rolled' before so it's a real thing, but I could be overgeneralizing from this and videos on Reddit of trucks blocking superchargers.
That said, there's a reason all the truck ads have deep voices and talk about being 'tough' etc. Ford and Chevy sell a lot of trucks so presumably there's something about the market that pushes them to this sort of advertising.
I suspect the overlap of the people positively influenced by those ads and the people that like EVs is small and of those the people that would like this design is even smaller.
Maybe there's a new market that will want this, but I'd argue it isn't most of the existing truck market.
This truck design is too far out for most people. I suspect tomorrow morning Detroit will have a good laugh at Tesla's expense. Will this prove to be Tesla's Edsel?
> Most pickups are driving office dudes like me to our office jobs every day.
Given the price of that thing, you should just buy a second, smaller electric car (maybe even a Twizy). If you care about your CO2 emissions, it's better to give up looking manly and driving like a madman at traffic lights.
That's the thing people miss. A lot of people that buy Teslas don't really care about CO2 emissions that much. Really it's just a bonus. That's kind of the point of Teslas, make a car so fun and cool that you buy it "despite" being electric. I bought mine because of the performance and technology. Only after having it do you realize how nice it is to recharge at home, etc.
Every time Musk starts taking pre-order $ on a new model, it comes out ultimately at least a year later, the low priced option gets scratched, and the specs get curtailed some.
Not trying to rain on your parade or anything. But be real. The $49k model S never materialized. The $35k Model E never materialized. This thing won't either. Unless you got the $$ to blow on a top-end model, don't expect much.
This is a truck designed for people who don't need a truck but would like to appear as though they do. It's like a fake status symbol of being working class for someone who buys 40k plus vehicles but wants to downplay their wealth. Basically for the Range Rover crowd except they put a bed on it to show how serious they are about its truckness.
Can't really see anyone who relies on their truck for actual work wanting something like this and the product page is clearly geared towards more outdoor recreational types (Eg. Pics of the camping top extension and towing a weird looking camper or futuristic dirt bike). Compare to Ford and Chevy marketing.
I wouldn’t be so quick to assume the Cybertruck look is what most pickup owners are going for. Maybe eventually...
In the near term Bollinger Motors[1] has electric pickup and SUV models that look a lot more like rugged high end trucks. Granted they cost nearly twice as much, but these are all luxury vehicles and people already spend 100k on a Ford Raptor.
You must hang out with some very atypical truck guys. Most would not be caught dead in an electric vehicle, and certainly not in something that looks like this.
Do people in the rural/suburban US really tow that much that often? Seeing the number of trucks just doesn’t make sense (especially given how few are towing anything). Is there a little measure of lifestyle signaling or macho involved in truck ownership, or towing capacity comparison?
Car companies don't limit themselves to selling people a car based on what their life is like now, people have already got something that lets them do the things they currently do.
They can market it based on what their life could be like if they brought the car. Perhaps in vague, emotional terms.
You too could be kayaking/mountain biking/skiing through picturesque countryside with your pretty, athletic friends... if you buy a Brand X SUV. Be confident in any situation. Whatever, wherever, whenever. Adventure starts here. Built tough. Driven by dreams. Past the pavement. Built for city roads and no roads.
Spot on, this is also while many people back in the early 2010s were so turned off of laptops without CD drives, they might not ever use it, but they want to know they can. (ev dn through they didn't realize the tradeoff was battery)
There is an exceptional explanation of this in the Adam Curtis documentary "The Century of Self." In the 20th century, advertizers pivoted from marketing on the basis of need to the basis of identity.
Nah I think that’s a more valid “I don’t know when I might need it”-situation. I never felt that “who knows, I might need to tow a sailboat any day now”-feeling though.
Why are trailers so unpopular though? I see the appeal of the truck when it’s needed but unless that’s a large fraction of my total trips why wouldn’t I rather have a regular car and tow a trailer when I need to move or take away trash? The flatbed is an extreme waste of space when it’s not used for hauling anything.
That is, assuming the other values (economy, comfort, handling, ...) are better in cars than in trucks. I’m starting to suspect that either cars+trailers are seen as unattractive (like station wagons) or that those other values aren’t as highly valued as they are outside the US. One big difference I can point to is the size of parking spaces...
I know several people with campers, horse trailers, car trailers, boats, etc. Most aren’t maxing out their towing capacity, but if you’re driving through any mountains, you’ll want to be well within those limits unless you want a white knuckle experience.
I have a Silverado diesel truck which I inherited. I don't tow often, but I do use it a lot for landscaping work -- hauling mulch, brick, and lumber in and yard waste out to the recycling center.
I do that with my small car and a trailer (Granted, I can only do around 500kg/1000lb on it, but it's usually enough). It's at least definitely worth the economy given how far I drive between every time I need to dump/tow.
Its going to sell well, like every Tesla. I suspect that it won't sell well to people who buy trucks for their actual utility, but you're right that this thing will totally be a status symbol; just not among people who would utilize its capabilities.
Just look at the success of the G-Wagon among white LA uurbanite-types. No one cares about the utility. It just looks weird and gives off this vibe of "I work! Trust me! Look at my utilitarian car!" That's who this will sell to, and it will sell well.
The G-Wagon is a very high end luxury SUV with a huge profit margin. As such, MB can afford to sell only a handful. But at the advertised price, the Cybertruck offers no such margin. It'll surely will be a money-loser for Tesla which they'll have to sell like F150s for a decade just to break even.
The Cybertruck isn't about profit. It's about making Tesla's name synonymous with shock and awe.
I also consider myself a "truck guy". In my entire life, I've owned a single car. I had it for about a year when I got up one morning, drove to the dealership, bought a new Dodge (basically the same as yours, except 1500), and told the girlfriend she could have the car (hers had seen better days).
I would not be caught dead in one of these.
(Disclaimer: I'm a Harley riding country boy from the midwest, probably not Tesla's major demographic anyways!)
The vast majority of SUVs and trucks are bought to signal some sort of status or affiliation to a group. Just look at how clean these vehicles are. And some of the brands. Porsche SUV. Mercedes pickup.
The people who actual use these class of vehicles for real have mud splashed over the vehicle and extra cans of petrol. They aren’t going to buy an unproven vehicle that you can’t refuel.
They’ll probably make a killing with the Cybertruck.
It will ultimately be limited by it's cooling, as all Teslas have been. Can it manage long, steep grades while towing? Downhill, ICE motors can be driven by the wheels to preserve both fuel and brakes.
Note that trains are a very different scenario due to not being battery powered.
Many (most?) trains dump excess charge into the grid, meaning that it has no limitations on brake power nor capacity.
Battery-powered vehicles have to protect their battery, limiting brake power to keep the battery cool, and brake duration as it cannot overcharge the battery.
To compete with a train, a battery powered vehicle would need to implement rheostatic braking (i.e. brake resistors).
Of course, conventional engine braking is not worth comparing to any of this, but I thought it was important to emphasize that trains ≠ cars.
Of course there are many differences between a train and a car.
But the technology is exactly the same: apply an electrical load to a motor/generator and it will generate a braking force. The source of the load doesn’t really make a difference as long as it meets implementation requirements.
(Perhaps maybe the most ironic way they could dump excess electricity could be by running the onboard air compressor — literally the same thing an ICE vehicle does to dump energy when engine braking: compressing air.)
My point is that the technology is definitely a good fit for braking large loads.
Of course, except that normal cars have no component to dissipate the load. The battery is the only way, and it has significant limitations.
A resonable auxillary air compressor won't make a difference. With a heavy trailer going down hill, you'd need to at least dissipate tens of kilowatts, maybe even touching triple digits if you also need to slow down.
Nowhere to dissipate the power → no regenerative braking.
There’s probably a few things this truck has that normal cars don’t have.
The air compressor comment was an illustrative tougue-in-cheek comparison, not a serious suggestion.
Imagine the amount of power needed to run an air compressor with a displacement in the 5-6 liter range. That’s exactly the amount of power we’re talking about. Because that’s literally what an engine-braking truck is doing, it’s driving its engine as an air compressor.
Your “tens of thousands of watts” estimate is probably just about right. And that’s not anywhere outside the realm of doable. That’s probably well within the abilities of regenerative system in the drivetrain this vehicle will have, but even if we assume it isn’t, a 10kw resistive load is a $100-$200 part, off the shelf.
My PHEV minivan (Chrysler Pacifica) does close to 100 kW of regen in hard braking. I imagine the Cybertruck could easily double that, probably a lot more.
That current is charging the battery—not dissipation. I have no idea what kind of energy the friction brakes dissipate (that's not reported on the dash like regen braking is).
From the perspective of braking a motor, charging a battery is just a way to dissipate energy. A bad one at that, considering that there must be ample room for charge, and the charge rate must be limited.
Sports cars dissipate several hundred kilowatts in their friction brakes (for reference, the Porsche Taycan which can almost do with only regen braking can regen ~270kW). A hard-braking truck will exceed this significantly, but of course distributed over many more brake discs.
However, for the trailer scenario, I assume that if you go up a certain slope using N kilowatt of propulsion to maintain a stable speed, you'd need somewhere in the ballpack of N/2 killowatt of braking power when going down during the full duration (unlike hard braking, which is only for a few seconds).
I'm not following some of your logic (especially the "bad one" part). Unless you start your journey downhill (which does apply to some people, I realize), you should always have room in the battery to store whatever energy you're dissipating—you had to get the energy to accelerate in the first place from somewhere, after all.
Also, peak braking performance is much different than effective regen potential, since you shouldn't need to do hard braking very often.
There are 3 things that limit regenerative braking in its braking capacity at normal speeds:
1. Battery capacity, as you mention. Mostly a concern if you started high, as you mention.
2. Battery charge rate (thermal and lifetime concerns), as you're within or exceeding fast-charge charging rates. Especially important as the battery is likely already operating hot from pulling the load uphill. To give an idea of battery wear, note that a Tesla Model S only allows you to fast-charge a fixed amount on a given battery before you are permanently locked out to not further deteriorate the battery.
3. Charge capacity from the motor controller, which limits total regenerative braking capacity.
The first two are unique to batteries, and become an issue with continuous regenerative braking (such as a long downhill slope with a heavy trailer). Number 2 is likely to be the biggest issue.
Optimal regenerative braking sinks take whatever you throw at them: Either a brake resistor for rheostatic braking, or a connection to the grid which from the perspective of the vehicle is an approximated load of infinite size. Rheostatic braking is only limited by cooling of the brake resistor, which can both operate much hotter than a battery and is much easier to cool.
So why do cars not have brake resistors? Because normal vehicles do not have problems with excessive regenerative braking. Even going downhill, their weight is unlikely to cause severe battery load (although it may fully charge). However, gravity is a bitch when your total weight exceeds 10 tons.
> Also, peak braking performance is much different than effective regen potential, since you shouldn't need to do hard braking very often.
Exactly. The reason I mentioned this is that you noted peak brake numbers, which have no meaning in relation to continuous load capacity, which is much, much lower.
Engine braking with ICE is practical, but is pretty much pointless to compare with regenerative braking capabilities of an electric motor.
Not only does regenerative braking recharge the battery, it is possible to apply entirely arbitrary reverse torque should need be, where an ICE has a pretty fixed resistance.
As far as I know, at these trailor weights you have to seperatly brake the trailer itself, which you use compressed air connected to the trailer at the moment. I would guess unless you can brake the trailer electrically as well you would still need it. not sure how many traileros with electric brakes there are.
With the exception of rental trailers and boat trailers electric brakes are literally the standard until you get into trailers big enough that any vehicle you'd tow them with will have air brakes. Electric drum brakes are literally the standard. For the sizes of trailers a truck like this would be expected to tow you would have to go out of your way to find a trailer that does not use electric brakes (once again, boat and rental excepted).
Which is my point, in order to pull "near infinite loads" you most likely reach trailers that require air brakes. e.G. my Range Rover is allowed to tow up to 6.5 tons with the air brake system installed (which it isn't anymore because I never ever need it). And at these loads, the towing vehicle's brakes are much less relevant than the trailer ones.
When he said "near infinite loads" I was thinking more like the Toyota space shuttle stunt which is just something for the internet cheerleaders to jerk off to and doesn't actually say anything about the vehicle's real world performance.
Nobody is realistically thinking this truck can pull more than ~15-20k (and even then it would be a short distance and no hills type of trip because of cooling limitations) with the acceleration/braking distance/handling we expect in this day and age for vehicles towing things on public roads.
My point is it outperforms the top-end F150, just like Elon promised it would, while also beating a Porsche 911 in a drag race. Just like Elon promised it would.
I haven’t done enough research on F-150 but I would guess it outperforms a more expensive F-150 at each of the 3 price points offered.
And that’s before accounting for maintenance and fuel savings.
I am not sure if this will become a status symbol, but I 100% agree that that is the market it is going for.
I know three people who own a pickup (one in commercial construction, one who is a big animal vet, and one who has a horse farm). This does not appear to be designed for those people at all.
However, I think it could appeal to the same people who wanted a hummer. Driving it is just overtly confrontational. It will be fascinating to see whether there is a market for exactly this though, because Tesla is supposed to be environmentally friendly, and the people who bought hummers clearly didn't care about that (at the time, at least).
The model S has a ground clearance of 6 inches and a center of gravity of 17.5 inches. This thing has a ground clearance of 16 inches. Assuming similar weight distribution, that's a center of gravity of 27.5 inches. Compare that with:
It has a ground clearance of 16 inches with the suspension at max height. When it lowered itself for the tailgate ramp, it was probably closer to 10 inches off the ground.
The triple motor also has a double stacked battery, so the center of mass is not going to be much further up than the battery is.
Based on the stated ranges of 250, 300 and 500miles (!), I would guess those battery sizes are 75, 100 and 150kWh.
I hope the upcoming triple motor model S, will get that 150 battery pack next summer. That would mean 600miles of range for the new model S.
The 500 mile range is 200kWh I believe. There’s a penalty because they are literally stacking a second pack. Probably not enough room to do that in an S, but I’m sure by then the S will see other upgrades.
Your wife drives an Audi that can't do better than 0-60 in 6.5 seconds?
Also.. tracks have turns. Low center of gravity helps, but this thing will probably weigh 3-4x as much as a sporty car. Even the Model S has weight comparable to a minivan. My guess is a Subaru BRZ could beat this around many tracks.
This is a cool truck and all, and I hope Tesla makes more exciting designs like this, but I'm tired of people thinking that Teslas are performance cars just because they have torque. Tesla has yet to make anything that interests me at the prices they charge.
>>Your wife drives an Audi that can't do better than 0-60 in 6.5 seconds?
How is that surprising? Unless you go for the really expensive ones with top-spec engines, you're normally looking at 7-8s to 60mph. As an example, the Q3 can be had with 6 different engines, and only the range-topping 45 TFSI breaks the 6.5s barrier at 6.3s to 60mph. All other engines are slower.
A1 can be had with 3 different engines, and the fastest one does 0-60 in 7.7s.
Really, the only Audi where <6.5s to 60mph is "standard" is the A8, with the slowest engine being the 50 TDI that does 0-60 in 5.9s. The second model in line, the A7, starts with a 40TDI that does 0-60 in 8.3 seconds.
They don't sell the A1 in the US, and that version is actually the S1 and cost £27k for the base version when launched here in the UK. It's a bit of a one-off they sold hardly any of them.
Again, there are fast A3s but the vast majority sold aren't that quick.
At 6000 pounds and a high CoG, this thing is going to handle worse than most ladder frame trucks. And that's bad.
It's also going to have truly awful front and rear visibility. Long windshields are invariably difficult to live with, creating a hothouse interior on any day without clouds. Once you add appendages to make this legal (side mirrors, rear center brake and tail lights, headlights and turn signals) much of the bold charm of the original concept truck (which is all this is) will be lost.
I agree the design is refreshingly bold. But lots of concept cars in the past initially took fans by storm only to fade into the mainstream by the time they shipped. I'll be very impressed if a design this striking can maintain its visual impact all the way through production.
Love it or hate it seems to be the case here - not many fence sitters. Been reading TMC and FB Tesla Owners group the past hour and reactions are I’d estimate about 80% negative.
I agree and think this could possibly replace many SUVs in suburban areas. 6 person seating is another great selling point for many, just look at all of the third row vehicles like the Honda Pilot. The base price of the Cybertruck is similar to a Pilot. Which would you rather drive?
isn't the electric-grid dependency completely antithetical to the ownership of an off-road, off-civilization vehicle ?
(also, honestly this design is a fugly tin can. Elon musk is generally going through a tin can phase (starship etc)). I wouldn't bet on many sales for this, but it's still interesting to see something so different
500 miles is fairly substantial range. I can see this being useful for a very wide variety of use cases, but obviously not those longer-term multi-day excursions into the wilderness.
That said, it is a truck, and maybe someone (perhaps even Tesla) will develop a modular LNG/propane/diesel generator unit you can put into the back of the truck for purposes of range extension. I realize this is inefficient, not environmentally friendly, and going in the opposite direction of what the electric car is supposed to do, but its also only applicable in those extreme edge cases where you need to be away from the grid for days or weeks.
You can also easily google that photograph of a Mitsubishi MiEV being charged on the roadside by a Honda gasoline generator. That needs to be scale up a little bit, but it's possible to charge electric cars like that - inefficient, but enables driving out of the range of the electric grid.
However, 99 % of drivers of a "truck" like this will be commuting between a suburban home and an office.
Or pretty much anywhere outside of urban centers... and even there, many in the South, West, and Midwest US have giant trucks (big enough they don't fit in a standard garage) in their urban centers.
Is this satire or are rich car people really this insufferable? This may be the best/worst comment I've ever seen here. The level of status projecting and suburban truck guy cringe is through the roof.
I think it looks pretty awesome. The ATV that charges in the back as the "oh, and one more thing" moment was also great. I can see this being very popular. There is something very masculine and forward looking about the design. The interior shots on the website are also impressive-- I wonder why they didn't show that tonight in the demo (probably it's just a rendering and the prototype version has a bare-bones interior). The glass breaking was tough to watch though-- I'm sure it threw him off during the rest of the presentation.
Skip to around 15 minutes in unless you like watching terrible smartphone footage of a bunch of people standing around waiting for the truck to turn up.
I wonder if they cut the presentation a little short because of the glass issue . Then again, Musk isn't exactly the greatest presenter so I don't think he could play off someone talking in his ear to cut it short.
As the current owner of a 2017 F150 long bed 4x4 with an ARE bed cap, I'm super-tempted by the Tesla. It's a total no-brainer for the people buying things like the Honda Ridgeline. It's less so for people who treat their truck like a work vehicle.
Frankly, I don't think will cannibalize the existing P/U market as much as it will sway more people away from SUVs into [Cyber]trucks, especially if the back seat is as spacious as a normal full size truck's.
It has a 6.5' bed, and I look at the bed to judge whether it's used as a truck or not. Shortbeds are unusable and nearly useless for any real work. They're so frustrating, that I don't even consider a shortbed truck a truck at all. It's a family sedan masquerading as one. Tesla very wisely delivered a real truck.
The only thing the Cybertruck needs is more colors. It's a little odd looking, like Robocop is coming to town, but it's time for changes in the market. The Model 3 converted me to viewing existing cars as dinosaurs, and this will probably transform the truck market as well.
I grew up working on a farm, and while I'm a developer today, I still get my hands dirty. I'm in for one.
6.5' is a short bed, though - it's the same length as most short-bed full-size 1/2 or 3/4 ton pickups.
It's only a "long bed" when you compare it to midsize trucks like the Tacoma or Ridgeline, which is what this vehicle really is more akin to (especially the first generation Ridgeline, as you can't replace the bed on the Cybertruck or the old Ridgeline as it was a part of the unibody - not good when you accidentally overload or bend up the bed, unfortunately).
Curious to see what the production version ends up like, but I don't know if this is really going to be taken seriously by people who need a "real" truck, at least in the current form. It's more of a weekend warrior vehicle right now, I'd say
You're not exactly wrong, but you are kinda wrong if you judge based on the which bed length is most commonly purchased by consumers (as opposed to contractors). On almost any dealer lot, you'll find maybe 1 8' bed, and it'll probably be a base model 1/2 or 3/4 ton with a bench seat, perhaps 90% 5.5' bed trucks, mostly in luxury trim, and a small handful (if you're lucky) of 6/5' bed trucks.
The drivability of a 6.5 vs 5.5 is huge because of the turning radius resulting from the longer wheelbase. Most people don't want to have to think about where they can park.
I had a short-bed diesel for 5 years or so, and put it to plenty of use. Yes, it's not ideal for common dimensions of lumber (but you can just pop the tailgate down and put some little red flags on stuff), but it will still haul tons of random things (for me: large trash dump runs, car engines on stands, a set of 16 car tires, several 55 gallon drums, a full bucketload of topsoil, a pallet of landscaping rock, etc). IMHO, a short-bed truck is still a truck.
You used yours like a truck, yet would've been better served with a standard or longbed. I'd be surprised if you ever bought a short bed again, as most people who do use their truck as you did find the disadvantages.
In particular, I despise the fact I can't even put a dual sport bike in the back of shortbed without the tailgate down, which means everything else has to be tired down as well. My point was really based around the fact that most people who buy crew cab shortbed trucks are using them as a man's suburban SUV.
Given the sledgehammer test, at least from the side that thing will be very aggressive in a crash. As in, if it runs into you, or if you run into it you will be more injured and/or dead. You generally want a little give on the road in both directions.
It's more than a belief... the statistics bear it out.
"The lowest 2015 death rate by vehicle type is for very large SUVs: 13 deaths per million registered vehicles. The highest is for mini cars: 64 deaths per million registered vehicles."
https://www.edmunds.com/car-safety/are-smaller-cars-as-safe-...
That could just mean SUV drivers drive less, or a myriad of other things. PG posted on Twitter a while back a study that showed SUVs were _less_ safe (per mile driven? I think).
This is a very simple matter of physics. Do you know what typically kills in a car crash? Extreme G-forces generated by near instantaneous deceleration. Big, heavy things have to expend more energy to decelerate, so they tend to do so at a relatively slower rate. Small things can be stopped very quickly. Therefore, someone in a big, heavy SUV is going to have much higher chances of survival than someone in a Mini.
But the article was from 2003, unfortunately. Searching online I can't find statistics per mile driven, which is what you need to made the claims the replies to my posts are making.
It means that F=ma - the bigger you are, the safer you are. The driver of a small 2 seater car is going to be worse off than a huge semi if they both collide.
I think a perception of additional personal safety is definitely a reason people like SUVs.
But you can be super safe while still helping protect your crash partners. You can often improve both your and your crash partner's safety with more crumple zones.
I don't think the patrons of this thing are going to be thinking about this much.
I'm not in the field; I just picked it up from the wikipedia page. They call it the "crash partner vehicle". Searching reveals that's what it's sometimes called in the vehicle safety industry.
There's also strain in an inelastic collision. More strain = less acceleration = more living. Super rigid structure = less train = more acceleration = less living. No doubt the airbags and whatnot will make this very safe from the inside. I'm just worried about from the outside. But whatever. Not too worried. Plus, who knows, maybe they did design in strategic crumple zones. They never said they didn't. Just got me worried with the sledge.
At least in principle, modern cars should be getting better at not running into things to begin with. The most survivable crash is one that didn't happen because HAL stepped in at the last minute to apply the brakes or stabilize the vehicle.
Disagree? Why? Active crash-avoidance aids seem to be getting pretty impressive.
Yep, if you're going to crash, better to be in as big a vehicle as possible. There is an argument to be made that smaller, more nimble, faster braking vehicles have a better chance of avoiding the crash in the first place, but the statistics do still show SUVs are safer overall, not just on a per-crash basis.
That works until you encounter a concrete wall or solid telegraph pole.
It also is unfair to those you share the road with to embark on an arms race “who can afford the heaviest car”, if only because pedestrians and cyclists will always lose that race.
Unfortunately, a vehicle can only be as nimble as its driver is. Most vehicles out there are driven by average, distracted, exhausted humans.
About this time last year, I skidded and lost control of my car for a fraction of a second while changing lanes on a busy highway at 60mph. I'm alive and typing this not because I was nimble enough to recover from that situation, but because my car had electronic stability control -- a feature that is often not available in smaller models -- and a good set of winter tires.
It depends on the country. ESC became mandatory in most large markets since sometime between 2012 and 2014, but lots of cars are older than that. Unlike phones, automobiles can easily last 15 years or more if well cared for. Which is great in one respect but also a nightmare when it comes to safety and emissions.
Broadly speaking, active safety systems in any industry are generally considered less reliable than passive ones due to things like software bugs, unforeseen circumstances, malicious tampering, power outages, etc.
But hey, that's why we're both here, right, shooting the shit on a site called "Hacker News." Because we believe there are -- and will continue to be -- better ways to do things through the appropriate application of technology.
Right? If your bio isn't a joke, you'd better darned well have that attitude. Otherwise I don't see how you'd get through a typical workday.
Bio's not a joke, I actually design nuclear reactors. In fact, my experience in that field is why I believe what I said above.
The SL-1 nuclear reactor accident (possibly murder-suicide) happened because a human was actively actuating a control rod by hand and pulled it out too fast. Passive systems that limit rod withdrawal rate are better.
The Three Mile Island accident happened because a sensor mislead the human operators, who then did the wrong thing and ended up dropping the coolant level below the core, which subsequently partially melted. Passive safety systems like a pool of low-pressure coolant preclude this entire class of accidents.
Chernobyl happened because humans could and did manually disable all the automatic safety systems that told them the reactor was in an unstable configuration. Passively safe reactors can't physically get into unstable configurations.
Fukushima had active cooling systems powered by diesel generators. After the earthquake, they started up and worked fine. But when the tsunami came, it flooded the basement. The operators for god knows what reason put the fuel supply and electric switches in the basement, which flooded. The active safety systems failed, the coolant boiled, and the cores melted. As with TMI, passively safe reactors with low-pressure coolant and/or natural-circulation driven decay heat removal (i.e. no diesel backup power needed) would preclude this condition.
The nuclear industry is very into passive safety features, from experience. The first true passive safety demos happened in Idaho in April 1986 (weeks before Chernobyl) at a reactor called the EBR-II.
In summary, making a system safer with active systems is one approach. It's often both more elegant, more reliable, and cheaper to improve a system passively via design ingenuity. Thus, passive safety has a place here at Hacker News.
Great truck. Very exotic design, excellent price point, However, there was one statement that stood out as a MASSIVE mistake:
>The glass is stronger than standard car glass
Please stop doing this. Audi and Mercedes pulled this gimmicky crap about 8 years ago until they realized samaritans, Firefighters and EMT's need to be able to breech safety-glass windows in the event you become entrapped in the vehicle (possibly burning) during a major accident. You may also need to shatter a window in order to exit your vehicle if it becomes submerged in a body of water.
Please, the vehicle already looks like the M577 Armored Personnel Carrier from Aliens. it outruns a porsche, it out pulls an f150. Youve ticked all the masculine boxes truck owners want for this thing. Dont turn it into a rolling coffin.
Considering the first part of that challenge is that they submerge the hilux in the sea, I can't see the tesla holding up too well. Would love to see it though!
While you obviously don't want to test it, there are videos of Model 3's and Model S's being driven through water over the windshield and were fine. IIRC there's a video somewhere of one of the Tesla models actually floating when the water got too deep.
I'm not sure the lightly thrown ball can break the polymer layer. Just because the glass layer shatters it doesn't mean you can go trough it.
Hope they don't use something like this 3M polymer layer, because it means you will be trapped for 2 more minutes even if you have the tools to go trough the polymer.
It's possible to build a stronger window that's still vulnerable to those "Window Punch" devices that all firemen carry these days. I'm sure this was considered, I believe it's regulated in some regions.
Otherwise, if that is indeed the case, if it was a family car for use with kids that would be a borderline deal breaker. But that doesn't seem to be the target market here. For me personally as long as they communicate the risk honestly I don't see the problem.
Model X doors are pretty mechanically exotic and the normal way they're opened requires electric power. E.g. the prying done at 15 minutes into the video is not at all how you'd force a normal car door.
There’s nothing gimmicky or odd about this. It was demonstrated to behave exactly like standard laminated auto glass, which is everything short of required to meet FMVSS 226 standards required by 2017. Most all US cars now have laminated side glass.
And for good reason, they make curtain air bags stay in place and do their job correctly. Side impacts are way more common than fires or submersions.
Regardless, first responders have been dealing with laminated glass on windshields for many decades, they have tools to deal with it.
And the number of people who break out their own windows to save themselves is approaching zero. Tools are typically still required to break old-school safety glass.
The extra strong steel panels also raise questions about accidents and crumple zones. Modern vehicles are designed to absorb as much force as possible instead of deflecting the impact.
My first thought is that it's not even a truck. The price will likely be increased and it will be unrepairable. You can't drive a car down the street without side mirrors.
The problem is the point of view. Towing a trailer of considerable length requires mirrors that stick particularly far out. If your vehicle doesn't have them front the factory then you can buy clip-ons that attach to your current mirror.
You're not just trying to see your blind spot, which becomes considerable with a trailer, but you're trying to be aware of what's behind you.
It'd be interesting if they went with additional cameras for this. For example, the rear-view mirror is a video feed already. It could stream from a camera you attach to the back of the trailer instead.
I don't have a lot of personal experience with trailers, a few thousand miles maybe. But I've never liked clip on side mirrors. They bounce around/vibrate. A camera system that's optically stabilized and patches into existing displays would feel a lot more natural for someone like me with minimal experience.
I heard that Tesla is bypassing that on the Roadster with removable side mirrors which you can install cameras there instead. Not sure on the specifics, but something along those lines (although I'm not sure about the legality and please don't quote me on this).
In my multiple decades as a Ford Truck owner, never once has any of the trucks left be stranded, Sure they had mechanical problems, ran rough, etc but they still got me home.
Of Course I also take pristine care of my Trucks, don't abuse them, and change all fluids under old school time tables not modern "Life time" fluid bull shit marketing
In the grand scheme of things, what are the chances of getting in a car accident that leaves you alive, but traps you, and also causes life threatening injures or situations, but only at the level where if first responders can't reach and extract you in the average amount of time? And how many people are afraid enough of becoming submerged in water to even have the tools necessary to shatter a regular window? And even if they have the tools, what are the chances they'd be in reach and that you'd be able enough to reach them?
Pretty high? You need only be unconcious to end up dying in a burning car because no one could extract you. Cars also deform in weird and chaotic ways in a real world accident, who knows what will be the final piece between you and safety. People sometimes exit via their rear windows because the front of the cabin is crushed and the glass there broke, but the doors and windshield frames were also crushed so you can't exit. Cars are pretty good at absorbing the impact so your body can tolerate it non-fatally, but you may still end up broken, trapped or simply unconcious.
Or reinforced windows might be the thing that prevent injury and death in the unpredictable scenario someone ends up in. I'm just saying, I don't think a strong case could be made for or against stronger windows. Statistics might give a good idea over a long enough timeline, but until more people are driving around with stronger windows, getting in accidents, how can we be sure?
You should be concerned about debris from the truck in front of you flying through your windshield. Unfortunately, I don't think anything short of an armoured hull will stop that. The stronger glass is useless.
I like your inversion method. For public consumers, we may need a stronger windshield glass for better protection, yes! For side windows though, probably not so much.
The door is either bent and can't physically separate from the opening or it's jammed against something like a tree/rock/road/another vehicle. Either way explosive bolts wont help you.
Breaking the window creates an instant smaller opening that's still big enough to get out of.
All the doors would need to be bent and can't physically separate or jammed against something to prevent EMS from pulling someone out. It's possible, but unlikely.
The second accident should be something EMS can pull someone out of from other doors. People would be stuck in the first and third, but those images don't show vehicles being incinerated.
It's possible, but not likely to have both a multi-car or large vehicle pileup that blocks all the doors and a fire.
It's likely that your spine will have sustained some damage in an accident that jammed your doors. That means you want level extraction, which requires removing both driver's side doors and the B pillar ("total sidewall removal"). Pulling a healthy person (or an injured person if they need to be removed from the car right now) out of a car is easy, doing it without further spine damage is a lot harder. Practising it is great fun, though :)
I'd rather have as many options as possible in an emergency, however unlikely, especially since this has already been tried and tested by other luxury auto makers before.
The main reason cars with internal-combustion engines catch on fire during collisions must be a breach in the fuel system. While your point about rescuing passengers is valid, I'm not sure fires alone could support it.
Side note, the anecdote seems misinformed, "The car is so overengineered. It’s so techy, it makes you want to buy a Chevy pickup truck." GM makes more money on trucks than on any other line so you better believe their is more R&D and technology in those vehicles than almost anything else in their lineup -- the only exception being the Cadillacs with SuperCruise. I'm guessing that lawyer has not been in a modern pickup truck.
Conceivably, the fire could be another car burning. If you have two disabled cars next to each other after a collision and one of them is on fire, people in the car next to it could be cooked if they don't get out.
There are many valid reasons first responders might have to remove people from cars quickly.
Who is going to be attacking you? Seriously. Even with all this crazy stuff going on we live in one of the most peaceful times is history. Especially in the West, which is where most of these are going to sell (few people that live in these violent places could afford this. Except maybe the authoritarian regimes themselves).
Personally I'd rather get the extra miles that a lighter vehicle offers than knowing that I can shoot my truck with a pistol. If you feel like you need this kind of protection then I feel sorry that you live in such unjustified fear.
Like I said, these things aren't common occurrences in Western countries. You know... the countries that can afford the Cybertruck (I don't give a shit about an authoritarian of an impoverished nation buying this truck. There are so few of them it doesn't even make sense to market to them, and why should we condone that?)
American neighborhoods are typically either like Switzerland or Swaziland. Most neighborhoods have low crime, low gun violence, and high income comparable to Switzerland. The other neighborhoods are comparable to Swaziland in terms of violent crimes. Don't be so quick to call someone's fear irrational if you haven't lived in Swaziland neighborhoods.
I disagree, I wish we could have fewer vehicle restrictions for a certain class a vehicles for people who accept the risks associated. A truck with bullet proof windows might be nice for people who live or drive through certain areas.
That sounds like exactly the sort of statistical analysis people tend to get spectacularly wrong. I'd be surprised if more than a single-digit number of people get shot while driving even in the US. For Europe, you probably need to express it in years/incident if you want to use integers.
Meanwhile, more than a million people die in crashes each year, and some 40 million or so are injured. Putting any, even small, additional obstacle in the way of help is bound to be a losing proposition.
This would essentially be a re-hash of the seatbelt debate, where many people were somehow convinced they could escape any accident by quickly jumping out before impact. That attitude lead to seatbelt laws, which were the single most important factor in reducing fatalities per mile traveled by a factor of 10 or so since the peak.
While I'm tempted to invoke some Darwinian principle, the damage wouldn't be limited to those making that decisions, but also their passenger, the next owners, etc, and possibly pedestrian victims of collisions.
In any case, I doubt it's actually forbidden right now. There are, after all, bulletproof cars. They just tend to be expensive enough to mostly discourage people motivated by Hollywood macho fantasies.
Most of these types of vehicle will be owned by a suburbian parent driving his/her kids to some variant of organized recreational events. The rest is just marketing.
I'd be wary about buying one for this application. I read underfloor compartments somewhere, and these tend to preclude the use of ISOFIX rear-facing car seats. A problem I'm facing right now; we didn't take a future child into account when buying our current car those two years ago, and now fitting a child car seat is a PITA.
Stupid question: what’s up with trucks in urban areas? I understand the utility of a truck in rural/farm setting but never figured why folks want to lug around that pointless empty half while living in cities. Two of the folks I know who owns trucks have used empty halfs probably twice in a year when bringing home some furniture but that too could have delivered free by the store. Again, as I said, stupid question.
In some cases it seems like pure conspicuous consumption. The sheer impracticality of it is a badge of honor. This is not atypical for American consumerism.
In fact, I wonder about the Tesla truck's appeal. I feel like the oversized truck's negative ecological impact is one part of its appeal, do does an electric truck actually end up selling? Here in the South, some pickup drivers modify their exhausts to spew toxic smoke ("rolling coal") which is clearly not an option with the Tesla...
That’s so true, trucks and SUVs like the Mercedes G Wagon, the Ford Raptor (the F150’s rowdy cousin) and maybe even the Range Rover HSE are typical Veblen Goods. They do really well in urban areas specifically because they are over-engineered and are overkill for the purpose they are used for and are not afraid to show it off. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Cybertruck does well for the exact same reason.
The overall height, especially of the hood is also really important for the pedestrian's chances. if a sedan hits you, ideally you can roll over the top. if a truck or suv with enough size hits you, you go under it.
Not that it's a guarantee but at least tesla's emergency breaking detects pedestrians already. We're still a couple years from release. I'd like to think the long-term solution is to just stop hitting pedestrians with cars.
> Veblen goods are types of luxury goods for which the quantity demanded increases as the price increases, an apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve.
I agree with you on many pickup purchases being conspicuous consumption, but I think you're underestimating how many people would happily display conspicuous green consumption. This has all the "look at my big powerful toy" but acceptable for someone wanting to display how environmentally aware they are.
Conspicuous consumption is an enormous part of consumerism absolutely everywhere. Wearing a $20,000 suit is conspicuous consumption to those who can tell that’s what you’re wearing but we don’t generally call it that because it’s only conspicuous if you’re in the know.
I hope someone invents a "coal"-roller add-on that emits high pressurized steam (builds it up for 5 minutes, then releases it when the engine is pressed hard). But it's got to be white vapor not black, as it will need to represent the green nature of what Tesla owners are buying into.
Having learnt the term 'rolling coal' just now, I would sincerely hope the morons doing this are in a minority amongst truck drivers. I find it far more likely that conspicuous consumption is to blame for the truck/SUV trend than anti-environmentalism.
I live in a city and have used my pick-up truck for 15yrs constantly to move furniture, haul trash to the dump, and bulk material (mulch, dirt, sand, pavers, etc) for myself and friends. It's a major time and money saver. Yes, parking is a PITA and the gas is horrendous. However, with the population density, the utility need to haul materials is compounded - especially now that you have increasing #'s of DIY renovations and things like urban farms.
The thing I find interesting about this truck design is the angled body. It looks like it's designed for minimised radar cross section (RCS) signature, which is a military application benefit.
Indeed. It looks to be inspired by the RAH-66 Comanche stealth helicopter [1]. Currently operators are known to use (through Mil-COTS) the Toyota Hilux. Maybe Elon is after an influx of SOCOM/DARPA money for Tesla (increasing his association with Tony Stark in the process).
I live in a northern Midwest suburb, in a region that receives a lot of snow in the winter. I have driven older trucks my whole life, in part because of of the 4x4 capability for winter driving. I also enjoy being the guy who keeps a tow strap in the toolbox and hauls people out of ditches. Hard to do that without a heavy 4x4 vehicle.
When you have the bed, you realize there are a lot more uses for it than you might otherwise think. Other than just hauling stuff, the tailgate acts as a bench to sit on- I used to have lunch with my wife every day in the summer like this. At an outdoor event (like fireworks, outdoor concert in a park, etc.) I've lined the bed with blankets and lounged at comfortable height with 3 friends and great view of whatever is going on.
For me, the real key is to own an older truck that you don't mind dinging or using to its potential. I buy used, with cash, and I don't spend more than $15K or so. I don't understand spending $65-75K on a brand new mall-crawling status symbol that will only start being used like a truck in 15 years by a guy like me.
Although admittedly, I really like the look and presumed potential of the new Tesla truck. It's the first vehicle that I'd actually consider buying new. I wonder how well the stainless steel will hold up the salty roads- the bane of vehicles around here.
I live in Northern Europe and drive a Prius and have no issues in the winter. Last year we went to visit my wife's grandma, who lives in a 'village' (nearest neighbour 1km away) ~5km down a uneven dirt track which is bad enough in the summer. When we went, there was 30cm of snow on the road, but I had absolutely no issues. I was surprised by how well it handled it.
Sure if I had ended up in a ditch I would have had troubles, but you'd also have issues with a truck. (There aren't many big trees you can use to tow yourself out in this area)
I get that maybe you like trucks, but I don't think there is as much need as you make out (in the winter department - your other points are fair arguments). Modern cars (esp. 4x4) can handle pretty much any road surface, the only case you would need something bigger is for off-road where you need higher clearance.
It's not just amount of snow but terrain. A fair bit of snow on a flat surface might be fine, but even a little bit on a slope can quickly become problematic if you don't have 4x4.
I wonder how this sounds to people who live in, say, Switzerland, where it is very mountainous, snows frequently, and literally nobody drives a truck, and even the cars are not AWD.
I mean, I _know_ how it sounds because I am one of those people. But I wonder how Americans think this sounds.
European countries are much more compact, which makes public transportation much easier to justify. By contrast, the US is extremely spread out and public transportation yields much less ROI even in many urban areas.
Vehicle ownership in the US is practically a requirement because you have to drive to get anywhere. Therefor, having a versitile vehicle like a truck is more apealing.
Trucks also tend to be more durable than cars so they're more common in the used market, especially in the midwest.
...but for many, a truck is just an aesthetic/lifestyle symbol. The "country" lifestyle is generally associated with independence and work ethic - traits which are highly valued in the US. Trucks are a classic symbol of that lifestyle. That's why country songs stereotypically mention trucks.
The OP wasn't arguing for public transport, so I don't get where your comments on that came from from. I totally get what you mean about "symbols" though.
> Trucks also tend to be more durable than cars
Surely the engine, drivetrain, clutch etc are the same parts you'd find in cars? Curious about what you mean here?
I drive a normal FWD car during winter weather almost nobody will go out in. I drove it cross-country through the worst snowstorm the midwest experienced in the last 10 years where I couldn't see more than 10ft in front of me.
All that said, I would have been much safer in a truck.
Alabama is the size of England. Using individual US states as points of reference for entire European countries is one form of the incomensorability. Columbus, Ohio is as far from San Diego, California as Barcelona is from Moscow. Except there's pretty much nothing but empty plain, mountains, and desert in between. Ohio has 10,000 km^2 of fresh water...about a quarter of Switizerland.
Recognizing the difference of scale is not a claim to exceptionalism. The US's scale makes it more like Russia than any western European country.
Inyo County, California is 1/3 the area of Switzerland. At population 18,000, it has fewer people than any Canton save Appenzell Interhoden (~16,000). Inyo County is surrounded by more Mojave. The Mojave Desert is the size of Portugal...nearly thrice that of Switzerland.
The long-term utility of this Tesla truck will be interesting to see. Even though new trucks are insanely priced right now, they do have very good longer-term value compared to cars.
I like having a truck but would never drop $75k for one. I currently own a 1999 Chevy 2500. It has 150,000 miles on it, which is essentially nothing for a truck that old. A lot of people who buy trucks expect them to last 15+ years and most of them do. Hell, as long as the frame is in good shape, you won't have any trouble finding someone who would buy the truck and drop a new engine in it, considering a crate 350 will set you back less than $3,000.
That’s exactly what gets me about Tesla. This is a truck you will probably never be able to repair yourself or at local shops (for software reasons alone) and is totally dependent on Tesla’s attention span and staying in business to hold its value.
Farmers are fed up with John Deere and their software shenanigans. I hope people like you who are actually thinking about value, don’t fall for this...
I own two Chevy 2500's, a '99 and a '00. They both have the 6 liter engine, very hot roddy. Bought them both for less than $3k used. One is 4WD and the other is 2WD. I used them to haul sheds that I manufacture and they are the first pickup that hasn't disintegrated under this abuse. My shed trailer and heaviest building weigh 7500 lbs together, and there is significant wind resistance towing buildings.
While I've never considered purchasing a new pickup, I'd sure like to have one of the cybertrucks to haul with.
> there are a lot more uses for it than you might otherwise think
This looks like a solution in search of a problem. People are buying stuff they don't need then finding a good justification for it (from their perspective). But almost anything can be justified this way. Even driving an 18-wheeler will have advantages you never thought about but this doesn't negate the downsides. Mainly that you carry around 4000-5000lbs (over 2000Kg) of metal mainly just to move 1 or 2 people and nothing more. This is a lot of wasted fuel and a lot of space taken in the street.
Coal also has advantages but few people would dare defend it with this argument.
That doesn't make it better. Moving around by yourself (like most drivers out there) in a 2300Km vehicle is not efficient. It's just better by comparison because at least it's an EV. But you still use a lot of (not so clean in the majority of cases) electricity to move a lot of weight just so one person gets from point A to point B.
People want one car to be the jack of all trades. Big enough for 7 people and carry a house's worth of furniture in one go while towing a boat, and travel 800Km on a charge. So it ends up being truck sized, 2500+Kg, to carry 1 person on their 5Km commute to work 99% of the time.
It's all relative. You could build something that weighed 100kg, so anything heavier is a waste of energy if we only look at ability to go from point A to point B.
But it would be a death trap to drive around other 2000kg vehicles, and it wouldn't be comfortable.
99% of the people could do with a sub-compact 99% of the time as seen everywhere else in the world. Are the only 2 options you see a 100Kg dingy or a 2500Kg fat-mobile? It's like saying you can't have electric cars because how far can they go on 2 AA batteries.
If that's a death trap around the "real" vehicles, should cyclists and pedestrians expect 90% mortality rate should they ever decide to go out on the streets? Is that normal?
> Almost no one in the US has a commute that short.
It's all relative. You just multiply that (avoidable) waste.
I'm sure more people could live with a subcompact car than currently do, but it's nowhere near 99%. I can drive a subcompact but they aren't made for tall drivers and anything more than 20 minutes or so hurts my knee.
People with families who regularly take them out aren't going to fit in a subcompact particularly if anyone is tall or there are car seats.
You could design a very lightweight car that could hold 4-5 people comfortably with 1 or 2 carseats and fit tall drivers. But no one does--it's not really an option.
You could buy and maintain multiple vehicles for different purposes, but it's expensive especially when you consider the additional insurance.
>100Kg dingy or a 2500Kg fat-mobile?
No obviously not, I'm saying that 2600kg vs 2300kg is basically irrelevant. And that when you say 2300kg is a waste of energy that statement only makes sense in the context of specific design goals.
>If that's a death trap around the "real" vehicles, should cyclists and pedestrians expect 90% mortality rate
No but motorcycles have an almost 30x higher fatality rate per mile driven than cars do, so I'd call that a death trap.
It's a prisoners dilemma. Everyone else is driving 2000kg+ cars. To make very lightweight vehicles that are safe around those huge vehicles it's very expensive. The solution is regulation, not begging individuals to drive smaller cars.
I find there's only a tenuous relationship between overall car size and space for tall drivers. e.g. a Nissan Leaf has about the same leg and head room as a Subaru Ascent.
Like me, you probably live in the vast majority of the Midwest that is as flat as a pancake. I would argue in that scenario 4x4 is not very important: if there's no incline, two wheel drive will work in almost any weather situation.
(sure, on strictly theoretical grounds, having 4 wheel drive, or 10 wheel drive or 1000 wheel drive, if there are no downsides, would always be preferable)
I once pulled a rather Jeep out of a ditch in my old Volvo 240 station wagon. At low speeds basically every 100+ HP vehicle is traction limited. It also did surprisingly well in the snow with a little practice and good tires.
How do you justify having much dirtier and far more carbon emissions than people who have appropriately sized vehicles? Granted, you could use it a few times for the bed, but why not just rent a truck and save the environment the other 95% of trips?
Trucks in urban settings are an exclusively American thing. Because of the chicken tax [1], a 20% import duty on trucks, foreign trucks are unprofitable in the US. This lack of competition incentivizes American auto makers to create as much domestic demand for trucks as possible.
Urban pickup trucks in particular are very American, but the ever increasing number of SUVs in places like central London is just as absurd, not to mention problematic[0]. I'm guessing one reason Europe favours SUVs over trucks is because the roads are generally much narrower here.
As someone with two kids, massive storage space appeals to me very much.
Flying somewhere for vacation now costs $$$, so driving say to France, Spain or Portugal is a lot more appealing. A baby stroller already takes up half the 500L boot/trunk space of my BMW X1 and even with an annoying & noisy 400L roof box we still can't fit everything we want (I used to go backpacking for months with a 35L pack, so I'm not someone who takes the kitchen sink on vacation).
A Skoda Superb has a boot space of around 600L, one of the largest among "normal" cars. If you want more space, I guess you have to go for something that may look out of place in the city center but does have practical appeal even outside of farms.
As your example numbers here show though estates are often better for storage than crossovers. So there must be other factors behind crossover popularity.
Their being higher is a big factor I bet (less stooping and more road visibility, although the latter is less of a factor as they get more popular).
The fucking problem is now that everyone has an SUV, driving something of a normal size makes you feel like you're going to get crushed to death in an accident.
You usually can but than there are the moments where you can't. Like that 1.3 parking spots the SUV took (https://i.imgur.com/RGxHHkF.jpg) because...well nobody knows because it should actually fit but the driver couldn't park it in despite the x amount of cameras and assistants or maybe just didn't want to because he/she needed more space to get out of it in the end (actual reason presented to me once). Parking with one wheel on the street/bike lane is quite common too. However probably not because of the same reasons as the street should be wide enough to get out so maybe there are just not enough parking sensors in there. Or that SUV in a narrow city road-fun: driving with too much distance to the right side so everybody coming from the front has to wait for the city tank to pass them because somehow SUV drivers don't have a good feeling about how wide it really is.
Well yeah...they might be a thing that fits well in the US but they as sure as hell don't belong in Europe.
Not as small, but my car is a Prius C. I feel dwarfed by most cars on the roads these days. I'm always needing to inch out juuuust a little further for a turn just so I can see if the road is clear for me to proceed.
I used to, until my MR2 was run off a road by a careless truck driver. I was fine but the trauma persists - the sickening sound of running into hard items at 70+ mph is hard to forget.
The fact you sit higher and the extra visibility that gives on the road is indeed a huge plus. Car salesman told me "everyone's ditching estates for crossovers nowadays" and almost every brand makes one.
My wife used to own a Mercury Sable. I literally dodged a deer with it one day without rolling the vehicle. Ended up in the next lane over in less than half a second still going down the highway.
With my big pickups, I just try to center the deer on my massive grill guard so they don't dent the quarter panels.
I'm with you on this. I recently drove an BMW X5, a 350D M-Sport, and the high level of body roll was a real surprise - straight out of the showroom I turned at a set of lights and thought I was going to roll the bloody thing!
Also, realistically I don't think sitting slightly higher up gives much better visibility.
> Flying somewhere for vacation now costs $$$, so driving say to ...
What about the rest of the time though?
Would you save money by using a "normal" car for most of the year, and then renting something bigger (SUV, (mini)van) when you need the large volume? Or purchase a hitch for your car and rent a trailer when you need to haul things?
A co-worker of mine drives a Ford F-150 year-round because he owns a fishing boat that he used 5-6 weekends per year. Seems... sub-optimal.
I was recently shopping for a car with loads of space - it's actually surprising how little storage space there is in most SUVs, especially compared to larger saloons, estates and hatchbacks!
An Audi Q5, for example, is big vehicle, yet I've more space in my 3 Series GT. Very similar story with the BMW X3 and the Merc equivalent.
At some the very biggest SUVs, such as the Q7 and X5, yes, you have a decent amount of space - but it's absolutely less than you'd think for what are basically tanks.
does the math really work out?
You will also have to spend quite some money on fuel and should factor in the depreciation and maitenance costs of your car to make it comparable. And flights on popular routes in Europe are pretty cheap nowadays.
Estimated cost both ways is about 600EUR, that includes fuel, tolls, a cheap hotel half way. Brussels - Bilbao is always an expensive flight for some reason. There's Ryanair airports nearby but it's a huge hassle and we'd still have to rent a car upon arrival.
Brussels - Bilbao at the end of Dec is 1500EUR for 3x tickets. Driving there & back is around 5-600EUR, including diesel, tolls and a cheap hotel half way.
There's cheaper tickets with budget airlines but getting to some rural Ryanair airport by 6AM with a toddler and a baby, no thanks.
just checked some prizes out of curiosity for that route and found tickets starting from 400 EUR for 2 adults and two kids (unless you have to travel on the most expensive dates). Make it 600 EUR but it still does not sound like a big difference and you are not factoring in the depreciation and maintenance a car costs for a long trip like that. Financially i don't think it makes a big difference, it's probably about convenience in the end.
Four hundred EUR total, were did you find such tickets? I use Kayak, only direct flights and no Ryanair (all too much hassle with kids)
A car like this should be able to do 80K Km before needing any serious maintenance / repairs so a 2500Km round trip doesn't worry me too much. It is indeed also about convenience.
We have 2 sets of twins, age 3 and 5. Currently drive a Multipla, which has the same controversial looks and the same 3+3 seating plan. I'd like a tesla truck, but I'd really like one as an estate/station wagon. More internal space, the merrier. Bigger is better. Shorter wheelbase is better for parking in London, but I can live with it. The number of big SUVs around here is utter nonsense. Stupid cars. Big on the outside, small on the inside. Diesel guzzlers. Nothing to do with function, whatsoever. Transport for London is banning a load of them in 2021.
Interesting. I’ve never heard that before, but I have heard them called Einkaufspanzer (shopping tanks) several times. The implication being it’s the tank you use to do your grocery shopping in.
but now we're putting people in the position where if you're not driving SUV and you're in a collision with an SUV you come off worse. so your option to remain safe is to buy an SUV so that if you hit/get hit another SUV or you hit/gethit another vehicle you end up in a better position
I don’t think that’s true and it’s possible to design small cars to fare well. I had an old Saab 9-3 that was t-boned by a Chevy Avalanche at about 40 mph.
Both vehicles were totaled. My passengers had some lacerations from shattered glass. The avalanche people were taken away in an ambulance. I was fine.
Small cars can be designed quite robustly to withstand these huge trucks hitting them. Not all though.
I think the current tesla sedans do quite well with large vehicle impact testing.
It’s not so much about the design than the impression. Lots of people don’t like driving and would rather a bigger car because they feel unsafe next to those other giant cars. Nothing to do with actual danger, just perception.
I think people like excuses to drive SUVs. I had a friend who drove an SUV and talked about the safety and space needs. But the SUV had worse safety and space than many sedans, wagons, and hatchbacks. I always thought it curious about why they would cover up whatever the reason was for driving an SUV but was never able to talk about it because they got deflective and defensive.
Modern safety features certainly help, but ultimately physics is still physics.
There can also be serious problems when modern vehicles have collisions with older vehicles that don't have those safety features, for similar reasons.
The downside is that an SUV flips over without any effort. Especially with the high greenhouses and unavoidable sunroofs nowadays. I've seen SUVs flip over just from being rear-ended.
Notice how one of the first marketing points of this new monstrosity is "passenger safety". Because the safety of the passengers in a vehicle the size of a truck with the performance of a sports car is really important. Given the poor standard of driver training it's going to be suicide to drive smaller car soon, let alone be on a bicycle or walking.
If I'm forking out 40K+ on a car I'm going to make sure it's at least useful for 2-3 vacations per year with the kids. That currently requires about 900L of boot space (stroller, 3 big duffels, a few boxes with supplies, toys, etc)
>people driving it have no idea what they are doing + have no need for that capacity.
Presumptuous to assume the operators of these vehicles don’t have the need for the capacity. My next door neighbor has 3 kids that fit in 3 car seats she carts them around all day not to mention their accessories and shopping and I always thought she needed a bigger vehicle.
SUVs fare better in a collision with a smaller car, when it comes to protecting your kids you are better off riding in a tank.
Get a MiniVan (called a people carrier in the UK) if you need the capacity, not an SUV. Better MPG, less likely to flip over, similar or greater capacity.
Car seats are massive and I’m pretty sure they’re deliberately designed so that few models will fit three to a row. They certainly don’t fit in my compact or my crossover. Putting them in my compact also requires me to drive with my chest on the steering wheel.
Here's a long list, along with a list of carseats that have been tested "3 across" in those cars. A minivan or SUV would undoubtedly be easier to load kids in and out of, of course.
Agreed, there are very few cars on the market that fit the bill. There's the Ford S-Max, Peugeot 5008, and the Audi Q7 (which is ludicrously big) - I think that's it.
It really does feel like a massive gap in the market, and I wonder why that is?
BTW, if you're still looking, and depending on the age of your kids, it might be worth looking at the MultiMac - it's basically a new back bench for your car, with 3x car seats built-in.
Maybe because not many people have triplets? My parents had five children and never had more than one baby seat in the car at a time (they only ever bought one baby seat).
I don't know if its a legal requirement, but every car with passenger airbags I've ridden in over the last five years at least has had the ability to disable the passenger airbag, and clear warnings that you should do so if a child is in the front seat.
The ISOFIX requirement is the big constraining factor. Ditch that and you can find combinations of compact car and child seats which will fit three across, though you’ll have less choice in terms of child seats.
Even if you ditch the ISOFIX requirement, it's still difficult to find a combination of 3 car seats that will fit across the back bench, even with large cars.
And the space. I doubt any normal family car I've ever driven could fit a rear-facing baby seat behind a tall person in the driver's seat, for example.
Toyota trucks are everywhere and our family 1995 Toyota t-100 regularly had people stopping us making offers on it from about 2005ish until I gave it to my half-brother in 2013 with almost 140k miles on it (which is nothing for a Toyota), I even had people knock on the door of our house offering to buy it when it wasn't for sale. The Indiana State Police (I live in Indiana) even had some of their fleet as Toyota pickups for years (they still might). Actually, I'm quite confident I received more offers for my t-100 than I did for my '67 c-10 and I'd regularly get stopped and asked if I was willing to sell it too (which I finally did when someone offered me twice what I'd paid for it, which I'm still sore about I really miss that truck).
To be fair though, Toyota does manufacture a lot of vehicles in Canada and the United States which gets around the 'chicken tax'.
The reason you don't see a lot of imported pickups is because most of them are absolutely tiny, when you see an Isuzu truck for example it looks about as practical as an El Camino.
They are also popular in Austria because you pay lower yearly/monthly taxes on small utility trucks even if you don't run a business. Plenty of large US trucks parking in the center of Vienna...
Same for the Netherlands, but here it's only for business owners. But nowadays even the mailman in a business owner, thanks to contracting changing the job market.
A small Peugeot diesel crossover, weighing 1392kg, will cost you €1484 per year in road tax. Meanwhile a Toyota Hilux at 2030kg will cost you €496 in road tax. Even a Ford F250 with the 7.3L V8 and 2850kg will cost you only €692 per year. Less than half of a family crossover.
The worst thing is that some pickup trucks don't have a bed big enough to qualify as a work vehicle, so they cut the bed and make it longer (VW Amarok) or they take out the rear seats and put a divider in between to create a cargo area. Or people just buy a bigger truck so it's big enough to qualify. It's also exempt from CO2 tax giving you between €5000 and €72,000 (not a typo) off your initial purchase. So the €256,000 Range Rover SVA suddenly becomes a whole lot more affordable at €184,000, just by tossing the rear seats, calling it a utility vehicle and registering it on your business.
Mind boggling that we do this while construction of new homes is shut down all over the country because of the nitrogen crisis.
Here in Belgium you have the rear seats taken out of any car and register it as "lichte vracht" (light cargo), massively reducing the taxes you pay on it. Anyone can do this.
I've actually considered removing the rear seats from my Ford Fiesta simply for the increased practicality, was mostly just deterred by the hassle/expense of installing some kind of cargo floor to replace the seats.
My wife and I both own businesses here and neither of us have heard of this.
That's absolutely nuts.
The only thing I heard of is that older cars can be registered under a company and the market value used for tax purposes. That's why you see a lot of these massive Mercedes on the road..
The Netherlands outputs too much nitrogen. Mainly because we are the number two exporter of food. So we are drastically cutting sources of nitrogen. Construction of new homes is done by heavy machinery that output a lot of nitrogen into the atmosphere.
I should add that only 1 percent of nitrogen is caused by construction, compared to 40 percent being caused by agriculture.
There is actually a fair amount of competition from Japan. The Toyota Tundra/Tacoma, Nissan Titan/Frontier, and Honda Ridgeline are all popular and in some ways better trucks than their American counterparts. I think many "truck people" are also people who tend to prefer domestically-made goods; in the same way that people shopping at Home Depot are more likely to buy products with the "Made in the USA" sticker on them.
There's a bit of irony in that the Japanese car companies make all their cars (destined for the US market) in the US, whereas the American car companies tend to prefer Mexico.
Add to that the hardcore brand loyalty a lot of truck owners seem to have, it really is surprising.
What else is really surprising to me is their resale value, especially when they are optioned with desirables such as 4x4 or a diesel powertrain; 10-15 year old Dodge Rams with the Cummins are still selling in the $10k+ range, with some of the nicer 10-year-old examples fetching closer to $20k, roughly half the original MSRP
How is the chicken tax related to practicality of trucks in urban settings? It makes American trucks cheaper. But OP's question was about the practicality of a large truck in an urban setting.
It seems like you wanted to show off your knowledge of the chicken tax and just threw it in an answer to whatever thread came up first.
I believe their point is thaat if the automotive industry has any control at all, then they'll lean toward the segment that has a moat to protect them from competition. So buying advertising to make it seem normal or desirable to have a truck for example.
It doesn't make them more practical, just more common.
It's definitely relevant to a general discussion about trucks. I just couldn't tell if I was missing something and it was somehow directly related to trucks in urban environments.
I found that once I owned a home, the utility for a truck doing "weekend warrior" tasks was great. Runs to the dump, transporting furniture, soil/mulch, firewood. Standard towing package for a boat or a rental trailer. Can also fit bikes, kayaks, skis, and camping equipment, no need for expensive roof rack accessories.
We use my wife's crossover for all of the family trips, so it's usually just me in the truck. Before I owned a home I enjoyed driving a nicer sedan but now I would now I prefer the utility of a mid-size truck.
I once managed to fit an entire king size bed inside a fiat punto, but it doesn't make punto a good choice for transporting things. Once you have kids, a dog, these modern mars-rover like baby trolleys, occasional need to transport furniture, etc. it's never enough space. And in Europe minivans cost the same as urban SUVs, so why not have some off-road capabilities too. At least it was my reasoning...
I actually rent a car for transporting stuff (mostly big stuff to the dump/disposal). The savings on fuel alone during the year make op for that easily.
Maybe 15 years ago I bought an old Mazda Protege, having downsized from a Dodge Dakota. I still needed to haul stuff occasionally, so I outfitted the Protege with a trailer hitch and bought a cheap 4x8 trailer. Best of both worlds.
I've been toying with the idea of getting a hitch installed on my Prius.
I can rent a van by the hour at most of the large furniture stores around here. Standard license applies as well (<3.5t). You can rent bikes, scooters, cars by the hour as well, quite convenient if you live in the city center.
Cars are cheap and tax is non-existent here, 50 GBP (which is actually the rental cost here as well, but of course the wages are lower) represents 1/15 of the price of the median vehicle.
Here in Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, etc is renting a car worth it if you do it maybe once a year, otherwise owning a universal large car is much cheaper. I rented a van for 2 weeks and realized I could have bought a used one for just 1.5x the rental+insurance price.
Here are much smaller (10x and smaller) taxes on vehicles, that is probably the reason.
Any risk analyst could tell you all the factors you don't take into account when you do a simple comparison of renting a new, cared-for, insured vehicle for which someone else is responsible vs. the crapshoot of buying something second-hand, which you now have to take on, whatever goes wrong.
I also doubt you are taking fuel into account with this comparison, which was the primary source of savings mentioned when you own a small car and rent a truck as needed.
Most people here drive Skoda Octavia which is one of the most fuel conservative vehicles on the market, worldwide. Having a smaller car brings no measurable gains.
Same for the UK. You can often rent a small van in the UK for less than GBP50/day and a large van for less than GBP75/day if you shop around. Sometimes Saturday and Sunday count as one day too.
Large trailers (if they’re big enough to be worth hiring instead of a van) will for most people likely need additional qualifications on their licence to be allowed to drive with so they’re less popular.
I would not want to make a trip to the dump in a Panda; for that I would want a trailer.
Front-wheel driver cars in the United States are generally not rated for towing, and can void your warranty. (It's silly, because as I understand it, the exact same car in Europe usually is rated for towing).
Minivans are the exception; they are rated for towing more than some compact pickups. Unfortunately, seat design means that many minivans no longer meet one of the original design criteria of the first minivan: the ability to carry a 4x8 sheet of plywood.
>> Front-wheel driver cars in the United States are generally not rated for towing, and can void your warranty.
That is crazy, no wonder many Americans think you need a monster-truck to tow a trailer. My small Audi A3 is rated with a trailer weight of 1400kg in Europe
Eh, my VW GTI has a section on towing in the manual that says, paraphrased: "Don't do this, also, this is how you do it" and any U-Haul rental place will (poorly) install a tow hitch for their small box trailers, even on compact cars
I only did a quick search and didn't find the latest model. But for the previous model you can tow 1600kg with a Golf GTI in Norway. The tow hitch can be ordered factory installed
You can use the Panda to tow a trailer, obviously you need to mind certain weight limits.
I wasn't aware those laws were so strict in the US, perhaps that is why trucks are so much more common. Owning or renting a trailer isn't uncommon here.
Just like trucks, some of which are almost exactly 4' between the wheel humps. The Toyota Previa (late-80s to mid-90s) and early Dodge Caravan vans can easily carry full sheets of plywood.
That it is possible to put a full sheet of plywood in a minivan has nothing to do with the design criteria for the first minivans. The design criteria for Dodge could have been fit a family of six and have space for luggage and a pet carrier. It is surprising that fitting 4×8 sheets were an explicit design criteria.
A lot of it is possible for sure. I used to do a lot these things in a Subaru WRX (minus the towing of course). Even drove home from Lowe's with an assembled grill on my roof rack once.
Always hated filling a sedan with trash, yard garbage, or landscaping materials though.
It’s the first three items in OPs list that separate the truck from the crossover. It would not be feasible to carry a volume of garden soil, lumber, or furniture in your
Panda.
I believe the Fiat Panda is pretty roomy if you put the seats down. I think sometimes it helps to have a truck if you're transporting more rough and dirty stuff. You'll not just mess up your seats in the Panda, but also potentially the exterior and door seals/trims etc.
I used to own a Honda Jazz (Fit) and it could fit an amazing amount of things because of the flat floor, seats that folded flat and squarish rear hatch.
I used it to move a queen size bed, refrigerator, washing machine: stuff you'd normally need a ute or van to transport.
In Europe instead of owning big trucks or trailers for occasional use, we just rent them when needed or hire someone (usually businesses) who also owns one of those to do it. Plus, almost every store will offer delivery for reasonable prices. It generally cheaper and easier this way.
But I guess in US this usually wouldn't be viable because of the big land and less population density.
In Germany at least we home owners have station wagons. They will do the job for transporting stuff 90% of the time and are still good for the Autobahn.
As one living in the US, I think renting a truck is quite viable, as is renting a trailer for your sedan/ minivan/ SUV. Oddly, we don't seem to do it much.
I recently bought a pickup knowing that the number of days in the year I need to transport bulky stuff can't really justify owning a truck. But since it (a Honda Ridgeline) is about as livable as an SUV, I didn't feel too foolish. Given that few luxury SUVs can be had for the $US 40k I paid, and given this truck's many upgrades that help it to rival a luxury car, I was sold.
We were originally talking about urban trucks, so these are not the people who totally need the vehicle. It is generally cheaper and easier to do that your way here, and most people do. But there is a very large subset of people who want a truck regardless of the cost. People in the country often have a legitimate need.
How many weekends did you assume he would need a truck? And what value did you place on his time and hassle, renting and returning a vehicle each of those weekends?
I live in Houston, where there are LOTS of very very clean very very expensive pickups. Most are status symbols that rarely see any true use.
However, in my immediate social group, there are LOTS of smaller trucks or smaller SUVs, mostly because of the practicality for bicycling trips. Sure, you can do a roof rack or a hitch rack, but if you want to go out to the hill country with you and your wife and both MTB and road bikes, you find yourself wishing for a truck bed pretty fast.
There's lots of overlap in this group with other outdoor activities -- camping, hiking, some fishing, a very small amount of hunting -- that reward actual trucks. My friend J has a full-size (read: HUGE) Ford with back seats and a long bed, and uses the HELL out of it, since he travels back and forth to Colorado with bikes pretty frequently.
But he and his wife also have a VW they use for most urban driving. ;)
I only own a compact and I use it for camping, mountain biking, dog hauling, etc. very regularly. I have utterly destroyed the interior of this car. The carpets are coming off of the floor, the seats are a mess, the headliner is well past what I can clean with a vacuum. The tabs that the bumper mounts to no longer exist, the drip tray under my motor lost a couple of mount points, etc.
Absolutely will be buying a truck in the near future for these purposes- and selling this compact to a high school student or somebody else willing to drive a ragged out hybrid.
The annoying thing is that, at least in the US, trucks are just getting bigger and bigger.
Small / compact trucks like the Toyota Tacoma have become much bigger, and other models like the Ford Ranger disappeared and have been reintroduced in larger sizes.
This is annoying, because the previous gen size of the Ranger (e.g.) is a really great and useful size. Most people who could use a truck don't need the giant "full size" models, and yet the market ignores them.
The problem is, they're just bad vehicles. They don't handle well, they guzzle fuel and they kill more pedestrians. There is no point in them unless you're a farmer.
Yes true, but I was really referring more to SUVs. Worldwide there is a real problem with this trend, and it is nearly all marketing. Certainly the average school run in the UK does not benefit form the extensive use of SUVs.
Yes of course. But nobody would ever argue that a van is a better vehicle than a normal sized car for moving people around (unless you have a massive family). SUVs are a profitable marketing trend for car companies and nothing more. We are literally burning the planet and people's insecurities are being exploited to persuade them into oversized and (thus poorly performing) vehicles.
VW Jetta does 30MPG in the city, Jeep Wrangler does 22MPG, i.e. 36% more emission. In the winter conditions (e.g. Toronto where I live) Jeep wins hands down. I don't even have winter tires. If you drive kids, the higher and stronger vehicle provides much more safety. Is it worth an extra 36% of pollution? I don't know. But the view that SUVs are just a gas-guzzling marketing ploy is a stretch.
They may be slightly safer for the occupants of the car, but the height factor kills 30% more pedestrians and in actual fact accident fatalities are up as a result of SUVs as they incite risk-taking behaviour and roll over in accidents much more readliy. Additionally, they only have to accede to truck safety regulations with are less stringent than those for cars. I can point you to loads of papers and articles on this. They purely are a marketing ploy as they are more profitable vehicles for the manufacturers. BTW those MPG ratings are shit by today's standards; most cars do 45MPG+.
> physically dominate the average car in an accident
This is just such an American way of putting it. Sounds so much nicer than "kill everyone in the other vehicle to provide a marginally higher chance for its owner" but it's basically the same thing
At a certain point tho, if everyone else is driving a truck, you either drive a compact out of pure moral-high-ground spite or you get a truck/full-size SUV as well to even your chances of survival.
I'm not saying escalation is a Good Thing™, only that it's inevitable when people are culturally obsessed with driving absurd bullshit.
Or you do the math and realize that with a modern, safe automobile, your chance of dying in an accident with a pickup is so small that upgrading your own vehicle to a pickup is a rounding error.
To be clear, I agree that humans being humans, we do love to get into escalating arms races.
I've seen at least 3 reports in my area where a head-on collision with an impaired driver (in the truck) usually ended up killing or seriously injuring the passengers in this 'modern, safe automobile'. Some examples:
It is an arms race and it is the right time for the industry to use the growing fear and demand for security in the global population to make some extra $$$ (just seen from a purely economical point of view of course).
I agree that it is probably inevitable but there is also people who don't join the race and that is lifting my hopes.
Things like “danger,” “skill,” “knowledge,” and “safety” aren’t really part of license exams in the US. They’ll pretty much just give a license to anyone here, literally.
It’s actually one of our bigger problems (it has big implications on safety, infrastructure, urban planning, &c.), but not many people really care. Cars are too deeply associated with “freedom” and “success” and individuality; for a lot of people I’d say they might be the biggest icon of America after the flag.
People will come up with all sorts of justifications for what is really an emotional purchase.
If you don't believe this take a look at the marketing for cars, the further upmarket you go the more it is laden with emotional triggers. Buy this car and your wife will become slim and attractive, your kids will love you, roads will become empty and smooth before you, that new speed boat will suddenly be within reach and trailerable.
Never mind the reality of endless car payments, clogged up streets, increasing pedestrian deaths, kids not being able to play outside, particulate pollution and climate change.
In the US, for many folks, their vehicle is an identity statement. Generally minivans, sedans, and econoboxes are the exceptions, but the marketing here for most other car models tries hard to sell some demographic that they can claim somehow to be special. And interesting. I suspect the majority of pickup owners want to make such a statement. For them, driving an SUV would send the wrong message.
As someone who has a truck in an urban area I have one just for the reason you listed. I dont use the bed often but when I need it I do not have to make special arrangements. While it is true that sometimes its possible to get free delivery for some larger items thats no guarantee and you have are dependent on their schedule versus being able to do it on yours.
If you're going to have a vehicle the flexibility of a truck is second to none.
1.) Hitching a trailer is a hassle, especially if you're trying to hook it up by yourself.
2.) Storing a trailer can be annoying, depending on style, and some HOA's or apartments don't like the idea of one sitting around in plain site.
3.) The shape of many trailers is not as conducive to some tasks. An example: a lot small/medium trailers are square or enclosed. If I want to haul some 8 foot (or 16 foot if you have an extended-bed truck) 2x4's home from Home Depot, I can throw them in the bed of my truck with relatively little difficulty. There are many trailers that don't work for something like this. In fact, I can't think of any trailers that would work with 16 foot boards..
You don't buy a trailer, you rent it for €20 for a few hours (or a few more bucks for the entire day), move whatever stuff you needed to move and then bring it back. No storage or HOA issues.
He said "without further arrangements". You could rent a truck too but the extra hassle involved in renting anything is often not worth it, especially if you also have to coordinate a few other things or people.
Not worth the hassle? The last two moves I've done that involved renting have been supereasy, i pre-book the wagon online and then just flash my ID, then paying afterwards
Adding more cargo space is easy with a trailer. Adding more passenger space isn't. And some permanent cargo space for weekly shopping is easier to justify than cargo space you need twice a year.
Over here in (Western) Europe most people rent a trailer when they need it, unless you are living more rural. If you need it once in a blue moon then renting isn't really an issue. Many places that sell large things, like IKEA, also rent out large vans basically for free if you purchase from them.
Right, but if you’re willing to rent, might as well just rent a truck on demand. At this point you’ve shifted the goal posts to, “why do people buy things and underutilize them instead of renting on demand”?
Why have a guest room when there are hotels you can send visitors to?
Why have a 4 door car that incurs most of its mileage in a commute with 1 or 2 people?
Well, here at least trailers are rented because you can pick up a trailer at the gas station at zero notice. Renting a truck is a little bit different.
I don't think most people have guest rooms on purpose. More often those are the rooms kids lived in before they left home and then the rooms get repurposed.
Mine is actually on the side of the house, behind the trash cans (also forbidden). The HOA hasn’t messed with me because I let the HOA guy borrow it. Utility trailers are very useful.
I guess it depends how often you need to use the bed. If you have to truck around that thing all the time just for those few occasions every year when you need to move large or heavy items you might be better off just renting a van for the day.
People should just do the math and decide for their own particular case if hauling around a huge vehicle with all the disadvantages that come with it (maneuverability, fuel consumption, parking, etc.) actually pays off when they need the capacity, or if they're better off always using the right tool for the job (regular car for most of the needs, rent big one for the rest). YMMV.
I’ve seen several comments in this thread that conclude that it’s wasteful to have the truck bed when you are not using it. Going one level deeper, to the owner it doesn’t feel wasteful on a day to day basis because you forget it’s back there when you’re not using it. But it’s so handy when you do need it.
Former truck owner myself, I downsized to a car after moving to a more urban setting. It’s often on the weekends that I loathe not having to pickup for various furniture moves, gardening, etc. since I now have to borrow and friend’s or rent one.
It’s wasteful in the sense that you use more fuel to carry around more car. You have a harder time parking and maneuvering in a city, and you generally take up more space than needed. Most people forget that what they do has an impact but this does not remove the impact.
How many times per year would you say you need to move furniture? If you do it 1 day per month but carry around a full truck and the above mentioned disadvantages the other 30 maybe it’s not that bad of a trade off.
Or just hire a van - I do this once a year or so when I need to move a lot of stuff. It's £30 for a day with a small van, £70 for a LWB transit (which is massive), or only £100 for a box van with a tail lift (basically a small lorry).
towing a trailer requires more skill than driving a pickup. there are some non-obvious but very dangerous mistakes you can make with a trailer that might not occur to you if you drive a small car most of the time. for example, if you load the trailer in a way where the center of gravity is behind the axle (or it shifts there while driving), you have just created an unstable system that will fishtail your car at speed.
I really wouldn't recommend that the average American driver use a trailer. renting a pickup from home depot is a good option though.
Where I live, you need separate insurance and in most cases a special license for a trailer. Also, in urban areas it's harder to find a place to park the trailer when you don't need it.
I live in Los Angeles. Four years ago, I bought a pick up truck.
In my case, I don't have a long commute. I can bike to work. So when I need a vehicle, it's to take my kids around, haul something I can't carry with my bike, or head out of the city for camping/adventuring/etc. The truck has been perfect. As it is, I use the bed of the truck at least once a week. I use it like all the other SUVs on the road, only I much prefer the flexibility of a proper truck, let alone the real offroad and towing capabilities.
Moreover, I know it's going to last pretty much forever and should I get a second, electric vehicle, there really won't ever be a time when having a truck on hand won't be useful.
I have a Toyota Matrix. It's a hatchback with a back seat that folds down into a flat bed. It's big enough for me to fit a bike without removing the wheels. Works for appliances and furniture as well.
YES! I had a 2003 Pontiac Vibe, same car - different cladding, and the best feature of the hatchback was that the glass also flipped up independent of the hatch. I once stuck a massive snowblower in it that was only possible because the glass was up and the handles were hanging out. I really like station wagons / hatchbacks, but their killer utility feature is a rear window that flips open or rolls down into the hatch. Sadly no cars are made with that feature anymore.
From my anecdotal experience, here are the main purposes:
* Hauling stuff from the home improvement and warehouse stores. Single family houses are a bit of work depending on age and when they are not, HGTV is the devil's workshop that invents the work.
* Safety: the feeling that regardless of who is at fault, you will live in a car crash. I have seen plenty of sad news reports where in a truck+car collision, the people in the car paid for it with their lives while the truck driver walked away.
* Status: possible - just don't have enough social understanding to know whether this is still a thing. I can imagine a jacked-up F350 or Silverado may be a status symbol.
I'm a married father of 3 with 1/4 acre of property. I did fine without a truck for years, but I bought an old pickup for $5k last year as our second family vehicle.
You can certainly make do with a smaller vehicle, but there are these occasional things that make having a truck suuuuper convenient. Some personal examples from the last year:
* Needed to top dress my lawn and it only takes 3 loads of soil from IFA to cover my 1/4 acre
* My father (who lives very close) bought a boat knowing he could use my truck to haul it when necessary. And yes, he talked to me about it first, and my family gets to use it whenever we want.
* I built a treehouse in this giant willow in my front yard and could not have hauled the lumber or fireman's pole without a truck
* With 5 people in the family we get huge Costco runs regularly, these are moderately easier to haul in the back of the truck.
* I get social capital when bringing my truck to any family or friend moving parties
* Used it to haul lumber, tools, and people when the extended family participated in our family cabin area's work day
* Hauled my father inlaw's motorcycle+ATV trailer on a family outing
IMO not everyone needs one, but in a community or geographically close family it is always nice to have that person you can call to borrow their truck, and if you're the one that has the truck then you get social capital when lending it and you also don't have to borrow one yourself.
For us since it's a second vehicle it does sit idle most of the time while we use the minivan for typical travel needs. But I have space to park it, and the truck obviously isn't wasting gas when we're not using it. And since we paid cash and it was cheap, there's just not much of a downside to keeping it around.
A thing like VW Touran or Renault Scenic will do that for you with much smaller fuel consumption, better ride, and also easier parking in tight places. (I'm 6'2" = 188 cm and >100 kg and VW Golf Sportsvan is very convenient, no need to step much up or down).
(And they will tow the things that most people tow, like a trailer that weighs a ton).
Renault does not exist in the US at all (or at least not in my part of the US)
VW Touran has a ground clearance of 156MM or 6.14 Inches and to total height of 1659mm or 65in , my Truck as a ground clearance of ~10in and a total height of 77in, that may seem like a small amount but is huge difference to me.
a VW Touran is exactly the type of vehicle I avoid
Further while available are not practical because there are very few mechanics that can work on them or have parts for them it has to go to the dealer which is $$$$$$
I tend to Stick to American Manufactured vehicles from Ford, Toyota, Honda, etc.
Ground clearance is good if you drive off-road or on very bad roads - you didn't mention that. If you drive on regular roads, 6 inch ground clearance is just fine, and you experience of the height at which you go to the car is not about ground clearance, it's about the height of the seat from the ground. For me, Touran class is very nice: I don't need to sit down or step up.
If you are 98 % of time driving on good roads, the generally lower center of mass makes things like a Touran or Toyota Verso safer and better to drive than a truck.
If you really need some more ground clearance, then there are things ranging from Honda CR-V (a very nice drive but a ground clearance closer to 8 inches) to Suzuki Jimny (a vehicle with actual off-road capability, but driveable on roads and small).
Of course there are people who actually do need a truck, but very often the cited reasons sound more like excuses.
Buying American, when you are yourself American, is of course a thing for many.
>and you experience of the height at which you go to the car is not about ground clearance
They are proportional, most Seats sit about the same height from the floor, so Ground Clearance it an accurate measurement to know how far the seat is from the ground.
I'm a small car kind of guy myself and generally consider trucks in the city to be silly. my last roommate had an f150 though and there are a couple of advantages. some of the roads in my area are simply awful, so jarring to drive on in my car that I have to go 10mph under the speed limit sometimes. there are also poorly designed intersections where you can easily hop the curb if you're not careful. driving a big truck means you don't have to care about this stuff. you don't feel the bumps at speed and you can just drive right over the curb with no problem. people don't cut you off or pull other aggressive moves on you nearly as often. my roommate has driven away (after exchanging info!) from two accidents where the other car was totaled.
I don't want one myself, but I can understand the appeal.
Practical answer: the people who actually need to move furniture, or other large items, in a city environment use vans.
Look at businesses and what their fleet vehicles are. No one uses an F150 in the city. Why? Because thieves very often steal stuff from the flatbed. If you actually want to transport large, bulky items in a city environment, you need to close off the back so that no one can look in and see the cargo.
2020 Ford Transit-350 Cargo is $35k.
------
F150 comes more in handy in rural areas, where there aren't thieves around. The flatbed is useful for hauling very large, oversized items, such as mountains of topsoil / compost, or rocks for your garden, or bundles of hay for stuff.
But when it comes to "city items" like furniture (often valuable furniture, so thieves want it), or large equipment like computer racks and servers... a van wins.
I think you're making a decent point, honestly. I live in a close-in suburb of a midwestern city and I think quite a few of the trucks in my neighborhood are probably 99% unnecessary from a utility standpoint. Having a reasonably sized pickup truck is a godsend for me right now, as I'm renovating our house and landscaping the yard. But frankly, since I work remotely, I really want this truck to be the last vehicle I ever purchase for myself (wife still commutes), and ideally we'll be a one-car household in the next 5 years.
For many, it is unneeded. For some, they only want the large vehicle, stability, and power for status or offroading. For some, they want to storage capacity for rare incidents. Some actually have use of it, just more rarely (say, a woodworking hobby). Then, certainly some professionals in construction have daily use of it.
Hard to judge which demographic you're looking at while driving around.
Back in the late 90's, for me anyway, buying a Ford Ranger strictly dominated just about any other choice. I didn't have a family/girlfriend so I didn't need the extra seats. 20mpg was pretty darn good compared to most trucks. The smaller cab meant I could heat/ac the interior pretty quickly. Easy to drive and maintain, and finally I had all that utility for when I needed it, which was rare but often enough to solve a lot of infrequent problems. It just seemed like the most practical choice. (I still have that truck, my family's other vehicle is a CRV.)
NYC is constantly choked for public parking and the rise of SUVs has made it so much worse. If every Ford Explorer owner bought a Mini Cooper we'd get 10,000 parking spaces back and less smog too.
Here in the southern US, it's mostly a status symbol that people delude themselves into thinking they have a utility need for. Typically people here will have at most 5-6 true needs for one each year, and deal with horrible gas economy (and blinding folks in sedans) since gas is cheap. Around here there's a lot of towing (boats, trailers, etc) but it's rare to see anyone make use of the bed.
Urban person here. Anything I go on a trip or go camping (many times a year), or have to move or help someone else move (unfortunately also many times a year), I wish I had a truck. I'm paying for a vehicle anyway, why not have one that does everything I need?
They are also useful if you own your own business that requires moving things around.
Note that I do not own a truck, I just wish I did.
I played in a band for years in Los Angeles and I loved being able to fit all of our gear into my truck on the weekends. Everyone was bummed when I finally sold the truck and bought a Prius. The Prius is surprisingly spacious and I could still fit my small drum kit and an amp or two but not our whole setup. Admittedly _much_ better for the weekday commute though.
People assume trucks are safer in accidents, even though that is by most measures a wrong assumption- Humans are irrational in that way.
(the other big reasons for their popularity is status signalling, and perverse incentives created by regulation of "passenger cars" as a category that have negatively impacted the quality of "regular cars" in the US.)
White people love boots and pickup trucks. That’s like asking my uncle why he has a $1k sound system in his $2k car (black folks love bass). I think it’s a cultural thing.
The US is a very wasteful society. It makes sense that they'd want to burn twice as much fuel as necessary to get themselves around. Watch Wall-E again to see where we're heading. Those "SUVs" are quite literally obese versions of the cars of the past. Obese vehicles to carry around obese, useless bodies.
How is that a "nationalistic slur"? It is well known that the per-capita consumption in the US is roughly twice that of the rest of the developed world. I'm sorry to inform you of this, since you are clearly American, but learn to face the facts instead of drawing one of your "-ist" cards.
A comment like "obese vehicles to carry around obese, useless bodies" is not neutrally discussing "per-capita consumption in the US" or any "facts". That was a slur. If you keep posting flamebait, we're going to have to ban you. Actually you did it again with this reply, but I'll consider that an offshoot of the GP.
Really though, why not follow the rules at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site to heart instead of getting serially banned? It's in your interests for at least three reasons. First, those rules are what keep HN interesting and prevent it from burning to a crisp. Scorched earth is no good for anyone, and there aren't that many places like HN on the internet, which for all its faults is worth preserving. Second, if you just blast the things you dislike with a flamethrower, it only discredits your positions. Keeping your cool, staying neutral, and explaining your point of view in a positive way would be more effective and have more dignity. Third, following HN's rules takes discipline and self-control, classical virtues which we all profit from cultivating.
Btw, I'm not an American. Normally I wouldn't say that because the rules don't depend on what I am, nor is "American" somehow a bad thing to be. I mention it because you said "clearly". A lot of things—maybe most—that people perceive "clearly" on the internet are actually untrue. This is what happens when users function in flamewar mode. If you switch to thoughtful mode you are more likely to get your facts right and to help other people do the same. Basically the idea is to learn from each other. Don't you think that's worth doing?
I feel like I am taking crazy pills with the amount of good sentiment to this design. This thing is absolutely fugly. The guys over at Rivian must be having a party right now.
As someone with a strong preference for a classical aesthetic I'm finding it hard to reason just how drawn to this vehicle I am.
It's just so outrageously different, offers the functionality of both a truck and the tech and performance of a Tesla, and isn't comparable with other 'trucks' which I'd argue are homogeneous in nature, cliche, particularly un-aesthetically pleasing and are synonymous with gas-guzzling North American indulgence.
Regardless, it's another instance of Musk pushing boundaries which I find myself continually applauding.
Not only 80s! Plenty of sci-fi shows had something similar as a generic future car design base, except with a proper paint job and extra lights here and there. This car can be easily turned into something that looks properly modern.
Related, this seems to be something of a theme with Musk's companies. Landing rockets is an old-school concept, and Starship looks like it was taken straight from the cover of some pulp sci-fi work from the 60s.
Your latter observation is not surprising. The 60s-80s were times of confidence in the future, in progress. We visited the moon, flied in supersonic airliners, and we were confident that we would keep exploring always further, always faster.
Now that spirit has largely faded away, the West seems to have lost faith in progress in exploration and is focused in preserving what we already have - sometimes for good reasons (environmentalism and fight against climate change), sometimes not (disproportionate attention to minor threats like terrorism, fear of immigration, etc.)
Musk clearly still believes in progress and exploration, hence it's not surprising that his designs end up evoking reminiscences from that era.
The 80s were when we thought the US and the USSR would kill all of humankind with H-bombs. Blade Runner if what we thought the future would look like if we were lucky enough to have one.
And this new Tesla seems reminiscent to me of that pessimistic idea of the future, trying to survive the apocalypse on Earth. Not like the optimistic future of 2001 A Space Odyssey.
Did you? While I was not alive yet in the 80's, according to my parents, the threat of a nuclear war was gone in the 80's already, due to Gorbachev. (we are 'from the other side')
Born in the 80s but old enough to remember the end of them. If what you're saying is that in producing what is a very futuristic truck design, especially compared to the current market, that Musk is actually evoking a sense of nostalgia from a demographic likely to be the target market then I can't say I'd disagree.
I fear Musk wants to recreate all those future visions he's seen in eighties movies and tv shows in his childhood. If his next product is the Airwolf helicopter I feel vindicated.
I almost laughed out loud, I love the cybertruck but man it's so blatant. It feels like someone just blurted out a hilarious joke and you want to laugh out loud but you kind of glance at those next to you to see "is this ok with you people"?
It's definitely tapping into current retro-futurism that is super focused on vaporwave/80s stuff. It's a phase that I wouldn't personally bet on, because at the time they were simply projecting what they thought the future would look like, and were just wrong.
The map is NOT the territory, it prefigures it and shapes the perception of those who meet the territory already ruled out around them like an endless net of roads across the desert floor.
>How old are you? This Reminds of what we thought the future would look like in the 80s.
As soon as I saw it I thought "dystopian future military transport". Then I remembered Blade Runner is set this month, of this year, and uncharacteristically giggled.
I'm tired of curvy trucks anyways. Maybe it's a good time to go back to something more straight. I also like that the exterior can take such a beating. It doesn't make sense that a tough pick-up can get so easily dinged and scratched. I would MUCH rather have that durable shell.
I agree that curvy got taken to excess, but I'd rather go back to something like a Land Rover Defender aesthetic, where every surface is something to stand or mount something on, often with built in grip surface or mounts.
This dystopian cross between stealth bomber and Mad Max is angular, but straight in all the wrong directions.
It looks like it's going to be a challenge to pass EU pedestrian safety regs, but I'm quite impressed they have achieved the ugliest road vehicle bar none. I'm amazed the balance of comments here seems hugely in favour - to me it looks like a wind up!
Love this comment. I think you're right on pointing out the lack of mountable surfaces. I have seen that mentioned elsewhere. This thing needs to accommodate accessories.
I love how this thing has the dystopian look, yet it doesn't need gas. Mad Max was all about gas. Maybe gas would make a comeback in a Mad Max world since chargers might become hard to come by.
If ugly was a goal, this was an interesting way to accomplish it. This is ugly that I would be okay caught driving in. This is ugly which achieved a goal, rather than not attempting to be ugly but horribly failed. ;)
There's still some time before this thing actually ships. Maybe they'll make some changes so that truck people could properly attach things like gun racks and winches.
With the smooth straight sides you could probably use large suction cups or magnets to attach rails or hooks. It would be nice to have hard-points for a more permanent fixture and one that wouldn't be so easy to steal.
I agree with everything you said and still I kind of love it. I get to live in a world where sci-fi props are driving on the streets like it's normal. And it's electric. The current times are weird as hell, but it's a relief when the times are comically weird.
I think people are missing something - the shape is part of why it can perform as well as it can, as well as have the excess of cabin space that it has. The boxy Land Rover design wouldn't get close to the 0-60 times (And likely reduce range significantly) because of the extreme drag the vertically flat body style creates.
Doesn't have to be entirely slab sided, but going on the couple of people I know using pickups for work, they have added no end of toolboxes, winches, custom mounts, light bars and such so they can do their job miles from anywhere in the dead of night. The lovely clean stealth lines without a horizontal surface in sight of the Tesla seem entirely unfitted for being actually used for real work...
0-60 wouldn't care about drag much at all. Highway cruising would.
No idea, but there's loads of world market crew cab pickups around in the EU these days. Though the insane size stuff like Ford F250 and Humvees only seem to turn up very rarely (thankfully) by personal import, which presumably sidesteps a lot of the regs.
I'd be amazed if Tesla simply chose to ignore the whole market though...
The fact that you hate modern truck design means you are not representative of 99% of truck buyers. Have you noticed the Honda Ridgeline has completely fell in line with other manufactures styling because of I presume market pressure?
I'd never claim to be representative of 99% of truck buyers. Like most here I work in tech and live in the city.
Do I see this turning up on construction sites in the next few years? No, probably not, for many reasons. Can I see it capturing some of the market of recreational truck buyers? I can, just as the Model S took part of the luxury sports car market by appealing to people who could likely afford more expensive "status" vehicles by being different.
Ah, I don't know. The Model S had a much wider market appeal because it looks exactly like a Maserati. A commonly agreed upon good looking car. I agree that you're probably the exact market this monstrosity is aimed for. But that 'status' based market is tiny. teensy, itty bitty. Why do you think the Model 3 was such a profitable success?
The first time I saw a Model S I thought Ford had done a great job at updating the new Mondeo - it's a handsome car, but not sure it looks like any Maserati I have seen.
I'd see this turning up on some construction sites and in other industrial applications. As it is, it won't appeal to the crowd of people who buy trucks to show off. But, looking at the specs, it just might appeal to people who actually use trucks for work.
Yes, the built-in 110v/220v power outlets and air compressor would go a long way when your on a remote build site. I can imagine it being very popular with "handyman" contractors you hire to fix your fence or repair a porch railing.
The only other option I might add is a battery charger for hand tools. I know they can plug into the normal outlet but it seems inefficient to go from 400v --> 110v --> 12v.
Some, yes, but I see fewer and fewer 8' beds these days. Most contractors and corporate construction vehicles seem to be the higher trim variety with 5-6' beds and extended cabs.
You can still haul 4x8' sheets, you just have to be more creative and haul fewer at a time. Otherwise if you need so many you'd reach capacity in an 8' bed, you'd likely have them delivered to the jobsite (yes, even if you own a truck).
I was wondering about this. Will the design fail as it's so out there and truck owners see themselves in a classic truck shape. Or maybe the design works because truck buyers want a large, stand-out vehicle and the extreme design of the Tesla might just appeal to those who really want to stand out.
Exactly right. It's polarizing. Very polarizing, if this comment thread is any indication. And the pole of people who absolutely love it will buy it. That group of people does not need to be large for this to be successful.
This is a great example of the marketing strategy that advocates focusing on a small group of very passionate customers. If you can create a set of fanatical early adopters for a brand-new product, you're on your way to success. Very few products achieve immediate mainstream success and assuming that Tesla won't likely have the production capacity to meet mainstream demand anyway, this is a very smart play.
It looks like the attempt of a “futuristic” vehicle in an early 90’s low polygon video game.
Reading these responses makes me think I’m out of the loop on some joke. Seriously. I had no doubt when I came to the discussion that all the comments would be about how ugly it is.
Maybe this is one of those white/gold vs. black/blue dress things. Or the “yanni” thing.
I’m blown away by any of the comments that find the design appealing.
It seems to me that most of the engineering is in the 'skateboard', There's no reason they can't sell the same chassis with two different bodies.
- The cybertruck for people who want that.
- A more conventional body for anyone else.
I think there is some cost issue in making the car armored. With a sandwich material it would be way more feasible to put together planar cuts than to cold form them. Armor usually is pretty stiff.
I think it's sad though that people want to have an armored car that looks like a stealth fighter.
It's also strange that you can sell it in a context of 'being prepared', with the offroad capability and everything - I don't know a better example for a vehicle being dependent on an always-on infrasructure than an armored electric truck.
> I don't know a better example for a vehicle being dependent on an always-on infrasructure than an armored electric truck.
Why? It is so, so much easier to produce your own electricity than your own gasoline. A truck running on slightly impure ethanol or gasified wood would still be more independent, but there are performance issues to consider there.
After reading up a bit more I think I was too hasty with that statement. Getting a practical solar capacity is quite a lot cheaper than I imagined for many latitudes.
Because it's not a car that is not armored and just looks like a stealth fighter.
And because it's not a car that is armored and looks like a regular car.
It seems to me people like the martial aesthetic and function(!) as a status symbol, maybe without reflecting why the martial aesthetic is what it is. To keep people in a metal shell with guns on it from being shredded.
A civil society should find these things ugly but respect their necessity, not celebrate them. And if civil society has a real need for these things, it's in a sad state.
It looks like a shark. There's definitely a deliberately threatening aesthetic to it. That's likely why it's so polarizing. As someone who likes medieval weapons, predators, and martial arts competitions, I definitely find it a beautiful design.
>I feel like I am taking crazy pills with the amount of good sentiment to this design. This thing is absolutely fugly.
The funny part to me is that this design is something I saw often maybe 20 years ago. It's the stereotypical future car that major automotive design departments often came up with, and sketched up in programs like Alias AutoStudio, back when it was still Alias. None of the designs ever saw prototypes let alone production, I'm guessing largely because they were too radical for the time and thus seen as too risky.
It's like it's half future car of the early 2000s, and the other half a nod to DeLorean.
Flash forward to 2019, the world's falling apart and going crazy at the same time, things feel a lot more surreal, advancements are becoming too numerous for the average person to keep track of, AI is a big deal, smartphones and all manner of tech are just a boring fact of life now, and as always the future is right around the corner, but for real this time.
Likewise, 80s and early 90s nostalgia is in vogue right now. Cyberpunk 2077 is nearing release. For the target audience of this car, they remember the 80s because they either grew up in it or lived it.
When you lay eyes on this thing, you immediately go "What the fuck, is that a real car?" I can think of no better marketing.
It's a rather genius design in my opinion, a retrofuture tribute to a future that never was, but now is.
Analysis aside, I tend to agree with you: it's pretty ugly, but for some reason I really like it.
The look grows on me the more I look at the model. I’m used to thinking trucks are fugly, though. They’re often gigantic rectangles that I associate with noise and function over form. This is definitely more progressive looking than the blocky designs I see on the road.
I personally hope it fails and they redesign since I don't want to be forced to drive around in a city with a bunch of these on the street - they are that ugly to me, viscerally ugly. And I waited for the better part of a year to watch yesterday's live stream, hoping they would get it right while worried they would miss the practical side of things after the odd choice on the model x doors which allow for no roof racks. meh. But the basic tech is phenomenal.
Fugly is in the eye of the beholder. To me this is an outstanding design, with crazy cool cyberpunk inspiration, and finally a fucking bold design move -- 99% of cars looking the same shit, even sports cars like Lamborginis sticking to the same designs since the 80s...
I've had to see such an interesting take since the DeLorean....
That's because the look of a Lamborghini is one of it's core signature elements. They could design a very nice looking car, but if it doesn't look like a Lamborghini, then a lot of their client base would be disappointed.
You'll notice this pattern with many of the really high end cars. Some signature elements are always present and evolve only very slowly over time. You could call it the master stroke, it's what makes a particular brand distinct from others. This is deliberate and I for one like that.
A complete newcomer can design whatever they want right away.
I think it's genius. A lot of pickup truck owners seem to feel that trucks are manly and Tesla owners are wimps. This post-apocalyptic nightmare of a truck will make it hard to keep feeling that way.
I agree with all of what you are saying.
But, the truck shown lacks wipers or side mirrors, it has a brake light on the tailgate (illegal in the US so the design they ship will need an entirely different rear design due to the 100% width tailgate), they didn't actually test their glass before smashing it twice on stage, the most common pick up designs are single cab, not crew cab but their design is not adaptable to a single cab design, the bed is shorter than the F150's, Rear visibility is much worse than competition(in fairness the AP cameras will help), they are back to the Roadster's Yoke Style steering wheel which has been proven to be unsafe (as it lacks grab points and is uncomfortable for one handed use (you can't 10 and 2 it)). It very clearly is half baked and an attempt to hit every one of a set of crazy goals much like the Roadster 2 when they should be trying to just ship 1.0. This is Model X all over again, it will be late, over promised to the point where they will spend crazy money making it actually happen and when it does ship it will lose money because it costs too much to make.
To be clear, I think it looks freaking awesome and I would love to own one. I also think they still have not shipped the Roadster or Semi, the Model S and X refresh is next year and the Model Y is still a year plus away even though it shares most parts with the 3. This is the same story as Apple's iOS 13 launch, they have packed their schedule with cars to finish while building a bunch of new factories, while just a year ago they were taking all of Tesla Solar's employees and putting them on the model 3 R&D line. I'm bearish on this not because I hate what they have done in the past but because I want them to actually succeed mass market and be stable. Keep in mind, the truck market is supposed to be a larger market in the US (but more than 2X) than the Model 3's segment. Why can't they just ship a good, shippable, profitable truck with Tesla's DNA? It's like the falcon doors, a bit power mad, in a year this is going to be the example people use to say why Elon should not be CEO of Tesla and it sucks, because Elon at his best is probably the best CEO around, at his worst he will trash the company for a cool looking truck.
The prototype roadster v2 when first shown also didn't have side mirrors or wipers. Considering they're currently promising cybertruck delivery in late 2021 (which means mid 2023 in Tesla Time) they'll have plenty of time to fix the design. I doubt the yoke, auto-moving cover, and built-in-ramp will make it to the production base model, too many expensive moving parts.
Re: rear visibility, in the test-ride videos the rear mirror is actually a video feed from the rear AP camera, the same that is done in the Chevy Bolt and has worked well there. Works even better if the cab is loaded.
I know that design is totally subjective, but somehow this reminds of the Homer-Car design-wise. Is it just me or do a lot of the late Tesla / SpaceX designs look like a 7 year-old draw rockets and future-cars back in the 70s and 80s?
We could probably learn a lot from 7 year olds. It is an incredible age. First grasp of reason and a real understanding of the world, and nothing has been beat out of them yet.
I had never thought I'd want a truck. This though is totally retro and I absolutely love it. Looks like Elon Musk is finally making stuff that's something Tony Stark would've created (aesthetically). Seems very Iron Man to me.
Having grown up in the 90s with a dream of becoming an automotive designer one of my favorite designs was that of the Lamborghini Countach (1974). The Cybertruck design is reminiscent of that design (to me), and I think that's one of the reasons it's drawing me in so strongly.
I think you're just too used to the kool-aid. From an engineering perspective, curvy cars are a disgusting PIA. There's no way to work on them without special tools, every dent is a big deal... they're like long fake painted nails: a total hinderance to work.
This car looks like I could beat the fuck out of it and the fix it with a sheet of metal and either a welder, some bolts, or some rivets. I see beauty in adaptability, which is something modern cars have none of.
I find it hard to believe the typical market for pickups would actually find this an attractive vehicle as well. I keep seeing "Masculine" referring to the design, but this looks like a fairly poor attempt at superficial masculinity, and definitely not a genuinely rugged and practical vehicle, which is what is generally considered attractive in a pickup or offroad vehicle. Purpose is the aesthetic, rather than aesthetics being the purpose.
There doesn't seem to be a practical reason for it to look the way it does, so I doubt it looks that way because it's more practical. For one, the roofs angle is counter-intuitive if you intend to put a roof rack or other kinds of utility racks over the roof or roof and tray. The rear tray also has sides that go up to the roof. How are you supposed to put stuff in and out from the side of the tray? That's a pretty common use case, ignored for aesthetics. If the panels are aluminium, it's going to get roughed up pretty quickly in the tray sides and top parts as well.
The rear tray is also looks smaller than the renderings make it out to be. They have a quad in one picture that takes up the full length and then a sleeping fitout in another that also takes up the full length, either it's a really long quad or they are really short people.
I'm sure this will become more fleshed out over time, I doubt this is the final specification for the car.
I can't wait to see all the different renderings people come out with, to show potential aftermarket parts for this thing. I think that will be the real display of whether or not it will make for a good utility vehicle. I can imagine this looking extremely purposeful and rugged with the right equipment on it.
I'm not a design expert by any amount. But I really like its shape. Maybe it's because I was an 80s child. It's like Robocop's car. The design attracts me much more than the more ... conventional, rouded? Tesla vehicles.
They're planning to look 'futuristic' for 2024. This thing will launch in 2020 along with Cyberpunk 2077, and will have the rough edges shaved off it for 2024 when it lands on mars. Elon's oversight role will increase and the main thrust of the project will be handed over to someone who can 'make it big' and focus on creating a glut of average items on Mars in roughly the same style, that Elon validates.
Then we will transition into a feminine, high quality style for 2028.
I love it. It's like one of the 'all sharp angles and super futurey and stuff!' cars from an 80s sci-fi film, where they've taken the body off a real car and welded up some ludicrous replacement. I mean why not FFS - have you seen what Chinese tastes are doing to BMW's grills?
It reminds me of a Prius and the other early EVs that weren't very popular exactly because they stood out in a bad way. I think part of Tesla's appeal is that their cars look mostly "normal", so to have this ridiculous stand-out design is unusual.
I don't like the tail end look - I wish they had kept the tailgate mostly vertical. However, if the marketing is to be believed re: the shape of the vehicle lending itself to its safety and strength, then I see beauty in function.
Yes it's not "right", fugly is relative to context, trends can make something fugly pretty. It's on the extreme-limit side of the spectrum. It's probably gonna have enough buyers to have its place IMO.
It’s ugly but it’s different. People can see you have one from 8 miles away. That’s an essential part of a status symbol. Like the extremely ugly Louis Vuitton print.
I think this really comes down to expectations. Imo, Tesla is a luxury brand. I get that some people feel like the Model 3 is a Tesla for the common man but the common man is either buying used or they're buying something that can be reliably fueled. That being said, and the reason for saying it, in the world of luxury brands idea matters too. The idea that an electric vehicle can compete on most of the spec sheet with a combustion/hybrid engine is sexy to people with futurist enthusiasms because electric things are being pushed as the sexy eco-friendly future right now. Obviously that's all just my own opinions, but I've yet to see much else to explain Tesla's balance sheets (plain incompetence isn't something I'm willing to buy into from the CEO that's working at innovating the astro services market as we speak).
My initial thought was that I could probably sketch this thing in CAD in like ten seconds. Rectangle. Triangle. Extrude. I'm sure the person at Tesla to whom that task was assigned enjoyed that aspect of the design.
You couldn't invent a more polar opposite of Steve Jobs than Elon Musk.
VERY disorganized presenting. Badly rehearsed. Awkward speech. Speech is almost never in sync with slides. Demos failed spectacularly. The rest of the event was him with a backdrop of two broken windows.
They didn't show the interior, and barely talked about the bed. Is this even good as a pickup truck? Is there enough storage?
This all seemed hastily put together (probably as a response to the other pickup truck press). But for an Elon presentation, this is pretty normal (high awkwardness).
Wanting to see him succeed or not aside, I find this far more intriguing and alluring. Apple keynote, especially recent ones, have become so cookiecutter and predictable. The surprise and strangeness factor is what makes Tesla events so irresistible. You truly feel like anything could happen, even the window breaking TWICE.
Agreed. I continue to want Tesla to wildly succeed. I don’t know anything about actual pickup trucks or why people buy them. Which is why I mainly commented on the presentation style.
And yet I think he’s the closest analogue to Steve Jobs. :)
A passionate person in charge, who tries to make the things he wants to use.
I wonder if the awkward persona isn’t intentional, i.e. to project a certain image, perhaps to appear less intimidating and more approachable, the guy you could nerd out about stuff with.
Wholeheartedly agree. Musk doesn't seem to give a shit about presentations. I won't be surprised if he doesn't even throw a fit at the window breakage fiasco. In Jobs world, that team would have been fired by now.
Musk is a tinkerer and it shows in all the aspects that you have outlined.
Regarding the interior - some 3-4 guys stepped out of the truck implying it must be quite spacious. An ATV could fit in the bed. So this truck is most likely going to sell. Pricing is spot on.
Elon keeps screwing up his presentations, and people keep buying his products. He give me hope that a sleek presentation isn't all that matters. That humanity still cares about content, not just the outward appearances.
Can someone that has actually worked closely with Musk confirm: is his thought process and speech as utterly disjointed as happens in most of his presentations?
Or, is this a nutty professor kinda of shtick that Elon thinks makes him seem more personable?
Thanks, you're right. At the end, when he's talking geek-to-geek - so to speak - his thought process and speech seem much more aligned. https://youtu.be/cIQ36Kt7UVg?t=805
> There were compulsory subjects like Afrikaans, and I just didn’t see the point of learning that. It seemed ridiculous. I'd get a passing grade and that was fine.
I replied to someone else with a very similar response, but I always thought the awkwardness of Elon giving presentations adds a certain level of sincerity. However, I do agree that some more specifics regarding interior, the bed, etc would have been nice.
"The Cybertruck is 230.9 inches long and sports a 149.9-inch wheelbase with a 6.5-foot-long, 57-inch-wide bed out back." By comparison, an F-150 has 50.6" between the wheelhouses.
Here's a picture of the bed, just before the ATV drives up to it. Note the wheelhouses don't impinge upon the cargo bed at all.
If you can put a 4x8 sheet of plywood in at a slope, the high end would be about 4.66 feet above the bed, if the bed is 6.5 feet long. There probably isn't enough vertical clearance for that, but it would be close. On the other hand, maybe the rear window opens and is at least four feet wide.
You don’t close the tailgate if you’re hauling plywood. It hangs out the back. Just like every other passenger truck out there. Most F-150s sold have a 5’ or a 6.5’ bed.
Such a disappointment personally, I hope they add a chassis option with an 8' bed and two seats, or maybe make the back seats removable? also they need a lumber rack. seriously, pickup trucks have lumber racks. I think they are missing out on a significant market segment of trades people by not offering it with an 8' bed(or a rack), and a foreseeable second-order effect is that it will give the Cybertruck the repute of being a poser vehicle. I like everything about it, except that it has a huge cab and a small bed.
Every Tesla has gobs of torque, it doesn't qualify any of them as work trucks.
It's a toy, this is a recreational vehicle hence the ATV. Off-roaders often need compressed air to refill tires after deflating for traction in exceptional conditions like sand and snow.
The decision to have sloped bed-rails prevents mounting toolboxes anywhere on this thing, nor can you place oversized loads across them without sliding off. That alone precludes the vast majority of work truck applications. The 1st gen Honda Ridgeline had the same defect, to a lesser degree.
At the very end they brought out an ATV and put it in the bed. With the exception that it looks pretty far out there the specs are certainly impressive.
I'm willing to bet this truck is going to outsell the Model 3 and Y combined. Tesla is getting even further and further from the restrictions of ICE vehicle design.
Yeah; after living in urban Texas you realize that the core truck buying market couldn't care less about utility. They literally mod their spotless piles of metal to be less efficient. They just want it to fit their definition of what looks cool. And this ain't it, chief.
Thanks for speaking on behalf of a huge population of people who buy trucks. Guess will have to see what kind of numbers this thing sells. (it will sell at least one, to me, though)
To be fair, the other large market - actual farmers/ranchers - does care about utility. But I also don't see them spending $50k on this kind of vehicle.
Edit: Others have pointed out my apparent ignorance of truck pricing; turns out this is a normal price
I'm disappointed they didn't do something more aerodynamic. The incumbents could use a kick in the pants to stop making bricks on wheels. This thing is just for poseurs.
Despite its polygon aesthetic, I wouldn't be surprised if the retractable bed cover thing improves the aerodynamics quite a bit.
I don't entirely trust my intuition when it comes to the behavior of turbulent air, but the tailgate on a conventional truck looks about as aerodynamic as a parachute.
The tailgate in a standard truck actually helps with aerodynamics by encouraging the laminar airflow over the cab to continue rearward rather than mixing with turbulent flow in the rear. While it can intuitively appear more aerodynamic, driving with the tailgate down actually significantly increases drag.
I agree though that the shape of the cybertruck, especially with the cover, should be a significant improvement.
It looks way more aerodynamic than a regular pickup to me. The shape appears largely designed to fix the drag from the turbulent flow over the bed that most trucks suffer from.
I never see any base model pickup trucks in farming country and even fewer in ranching country. You can see many old beaters, but they're outnumbered by the fancy ones.
Cool to nerds like us is not the same thing as cool to executives who want to pretend they're ranchers. Although I'm not shocked that Elon Musk wouldn't realize the difference.
Edit: Ah. I didn't allow all of the scripts at first, so didn't see the text about "exterior shell made for ultimate durability and passenger protection". They ought to use actual "bulletproof" windows, however. So I wonder if this is aimed at wealthy preppers.
Also, the nose should be depleted uranium, with the batteries just behind and shielded, to facilitate punching through other vehicles in the way.
I don't think making the windows as tough as the stainless steel truck body is a design goal. I suspect they'll probably improve them so they survive the "hurl a steel sphere at the window as hard as you can" test from the on-stage demo, but I doubt the stock windows will ever be literally bulletproof like the truck body is.
Eh, I'm not sure about that. I drive a Silverado. It's a family thing; I started driving one when I was 16. I put down $100 tonight. I'm not 100% sold, but I actually like that it's different.
I've seen Elon say he spends about 1% (or something like it) of his time for marketing/presentation preparation. And I think it included press-interviews/presentation-prep/etc.
And he was planning/hoping to reduce it even more.
From what you say, it seems Elon achieved his goal regarding his time management goal.
And I also remember some saying Apple engineers basically spent their time all year preparing for Jobs' next upcoming presentation. :)
> But for an Elon presentation, this is pretty normal (high awkwardness).
Give me the high-functioning aspie CEO who puts all their energy into realizing a brilliant vision, and has none left over to game their audience with 'charisma' (e.g., Adam Neumann). Not sure that Steve Jobs was much of a normie either - though possibly his meditation practice had some effect to his conduct.
> You couldn't invent a more polar opposite of Steve Jobs than Elon Musk.
Jobs would start off describing a common problem before unveiling the product which inevitably solves said problem. This often brought cheers that felt genuine.
Musk simply shows something bizarre and talks about how they made it, never how it solves your problems (other than a desire for the latest tech). edit Regarding the transition to EV vehicles, that's what Musk always says about new models, it's not a new thing.
Sorry, I meant to say the market will solve this problem. We don't need mass transit, we need more EV cars. Everyone should have a 7 ton steel EV to carry all the stuff they buy in the abundant future we have before us.
I watched it, I cringed, I still put $100 down on a top-end model, hoping I'll have the cash when it arrives 2+ years hence.
Thing is: though the glass demo failed, we still know this guy comes thru with great stuff - he'll get that problem fixed, and we'll have videos soon of someone literally shooting up the truck with practically no damage (glass included). The man managed to get rockets to land & reuse; fixing the glass will be resolved next week.
I'm not sure if I'm thrilled or dismayed by the exterior design, but it's innovative and futuristic. It pushes the state of the industry forward.
No, but I think a lot of people group Musk and Jobs together. It's not that one is "better" than the other or anything like that, but rather they're very different people.
Yeah, a lot of people talking about how ugly it is. But that's exactly what a pick-up has always been. A big ugly thing with a bed in the back and a lot of utility most people didn't even use.
Some models over the years have looked decent. Many have (Ford especially) have been dog ugly. I could see this thing taking off, though not sure how rural truck owners would take to electric.
Edit: On second thought, rural truck owners must go through a ton of gas. I bet they would love to own something like this.
Edit edit: I also love that this thing can take a beating on the exterior. You don't have to worry about scratches in the paint or dents from shopping cart accidents.
I have a family member who has a modified Nissan truck, that is currently getting 9 mpg and driving him crazy because of it (it was a whopping 13 mpg stock). He's stupidly spending a fortune in gas. There is certainly going to be a huge market for electric trucks. I don't know if this is one of the winners, it's a super odd design choice so it's impossible to tell how the market will respond ahead of time, however some companies are going to win very big in the segment. I'm pulling for Tesla, they've placed a lot of early, risky bets trying to push passenger vehicles forward.
Right. People will spend 50K on a truck because it's a major part of their livelihood and then the gas will be a big burden. This could help a lot in those cases.
Days after the Jeep Gladiator (a Wrangler pickup) was available, I saw several in the suburbs. This is Tesla territory, so come 2022 there will be a bunch of Cybertrucks taking the kids to school.
How many rural areas have you been to? I see small houses with a half-dozen pickups sitting around all the time when I get more than 100 miles or so out of a major city. And places like ranches, farms, and orchards seem to operate small fleets of them.
Of course, they usually span the past few decades of makes/models, but there are plenty of towns where the trucks outnumber the people.
I think one big issue will be that a lot of people are like 50 miles from the nearest major highway or town, which makes the range a bigger issue for daily use.
There are more people in the city, but are you sure there more truck purchases? I'm not, but all I'm saying is that I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't.
way more. Every rural person could buy 5 trucks a year and there'd still be 10x as many purchases in the city. and rural people dont buy 5 trucks a year. The population differences are staggering and trucks are popular.
Solar has been a hit for some rural folks as you can go off grid & make your own power. An electric vehicle could theoretically go part & parcel with that, although you'd need a large array.
when the Fukushima disaster happened in 2011 and the surrounding areas became no-go zone, gasoline cars were stuck because no gas tankers were coming in to refill the gas stations.
But electric cars were charging from local solar powered recharging stations just fine.
> that's exactly what a pick-up has always been. A big ugly thing
As a former truck owner I have to disagree. I like modern trucks and with a few exceptions think they've looked great since they were invented. The truck shown by Tesla does not appeal to me.
Frankly I think it's odd how one-sided the upvotes are going in this thread. I really don't think Tesla would bother astroturfing on HN so I dunno... I guess HN folks really like the design. Personally I just don't see it having wide appeal, especially among truck owners.
A Ford F150 for example, looks 'masculine'. The Tesla truck looks... sterile? It's like comparing a sledgehammer to a scalpel.
I'm assuming by "upvotes" you're referring to positive reactions to the design as opposed to the HN voting buttons.
The design, of course, is subjective. We'll be seeing professional commentary which may sway our opinion. I would be interested to see if there were design constraints which weighed heavily in the final design.
There's a prism of ugly and this truck fits in the region which I can live with. I have mostly found Ford designs to be ugly (1995 for example.) I also feel that truck designs have mostly been similar. If I find X year Ford to be ugly, then it's relative to the same year of Chevy. There's also utility ugly and the sort of ugly which attempts to be artistic but which fails into something I would be embarrassed to drive (curves and paint schemes which aren't meant to be functional and just look bad.)
The Tesla Cybertruck has the feel of minimalist utility. It's also bold and different. Unlike the Rivian, it's not trying to be anything like the current state of the art of trucks. I think it will have a lot of appeal for being different and for having crazy specs. It's ugly, but I want one.
I have been seeing good comments pointing out problems. For example, it doesn't seem to be accommodating to accessories. Maybe this is something which will get worked out before it hits production.
History will judge this thing better than we can. Regardless of our opinion, it will be interesting to see if the design sticks.
It's funny that you choose the 1995 style because that style of F-150 is enduring enough to have its own short hand amongst truck people, the OBS (Old Body Style). The OBS generations of the F-150 are considered to this day to be beautiful trucks with lasting aesthetics by many truck folks and you'll see a lot of well preserved or rebuilt OBS bodies out there. Certainly far more than the body style that succeeded it (1997).
Tastes are subjective, I agree, but I want to point out on, at least this small matter, how much yours diverge from a lot of people that purchase trucks. I think history will judge mostly whether this appealed to people in a venn diagram of truck owners and not truck owners who are looking for very aggressive and unorthodox large status vehicles and are underserved by the truck SUV market.
Anything about trucks in HN (or the internet really) will devolve into complaint fests about American trucks and, their size, their faux masculinity, how they are sub-par vehicles, etc. In that environment any sort of perceived challenge to the big 4 (Toyota Tundra included because it's the most American truck you can imagine, horrifying gas mileage, huge as hell) and any kind complaining about trucks is encouraged.
I don't really mind, it doesn't affect me one way or another, but I do find the consistency in these threads curious. Sometimes I chalk it up to probably far more European commenters than I would have guessed, but also it's just the demo of HN or people that spend too much time arguing about things on the internet (see the comment section of Jalopnik). You could easily turn loose a markov chain based comment generator on one of these threads and rise to the top.
This is basically cultural conditioning and selection bias. You've already owned a truck, you think they look great, you think they're masculine, you compare it to a sledgehammer. It seems marketing has worked very effectively on you.
That truck you link looks horrible. I cannot fathom how some designer thought that looked good. It’s like they worked halfway on the design and then pushed straight to production.
Then again some people feel the same way about the Tesla truck. Personally I think the Cybertruck looks incredible.
I want this car, but other pickups have started looking pretty decent for the past two decades now. To put it lightly, the cyber truck’s look is not conservative at all
Rural doesn't imply the individual owns land. Rural does imply long distances, modest incomes, etc. I certainly wouldn't want to charge an electric vehicle @ $0.14/KWH and I don't have the option for solar.
I have a Toyota Tacoma. I expect it will go well into the multi-hundred miles (typical for Tacomas), I have 4 jerry cans filled for when exploring off-road or for times like "oh hey, the power is out, the pump in a rural town doesn't have power".
I think a Tesla is rated for about 3 miles per kwh and you'd be lucky to get 15 miles per gallon in an ICE truck at 2.6$/gallon in places like Texas. So 1 gallon == ~5-10kwh assuming that very generous & awesome milage and low price for petrol. So you get about 3-4x the miles for the same money with an EV when we pretend that holds up (i.e. just double/triple the numbers for your actual cost).
Rural means limited access to infrastructure, including petrol stations. Especially when those start going out of business because of people switching to EVs, this will induce some range anxiety for ICE vehicle owners that already have to spend a lot of money on fuel just for the detours they have to make to refuel (50-100 miles). When petrol stations start going out of business, it will be the small unprofitable rural ones that go first. Margins for those are shit to begin with and even a few percent drop in demand is going to impact them heavily. And it will be more than a few percent. Worse, remaining hybrids and ICE vehicles will be competing on range and efficiency. Which means less revenue for petrol stations charging per gallon.
With an EV, any kind of wall socket will be able to charge you (though probably not at a great speed). That includes the one you have at home. With this thing you leave with 500 mile range in the morning. In case that that is not enough, any surviving petrol stations that are functioning will likely have wall sockets and if the owners are somewhat enterprising they might invest in high capacity chargers. If you are unlucky enough that there is no super charger in a 100 mile radius, that should cover your emergency needs. Generally it is going to be much easier to find the nearest functioning wall socket than a petrol station. The absolute worst case is that you run out of battery due to spectacularly poor planning and then somebody with another EV (i.e. battery on wheels) drives up to you to give you a few kwh. Mobile charging infrastructure is going to be a thing.
You nailed it. Long distance driving as the norm. Modest incomes, but still driving expensive pick-ups. Gas is a major expense in this case. If you can save on electric, then this thing would be looking really good.
I don't think I would trust a Tesla to the rigors one exposes trucks on farms, acreage properties, etc entail. Rural areas are a mix of some newer but also a lot of older trucks.
Gas is one expense. California and some other western states (WA) are doing what they can to ramp up licensing fees on older vehicles to make them less affordable.
Electricity wouldn't be an option for exploring / driving extended off road trips for most. An enterprising owner could use some custom PV/mounts/wiring, a battery or cap buffer, and some power electronics provide off grid charging.
Someone could do this with any EV, but tossing it all in the back of a pickup is easier than a sedan or even an SUV.
My bit about rural truck owners was more about demographic than power source. I have lived much of my life in rural areas of Idaho and Montana. The looks of this thing is NO problem. People will love it. But as a big life change, going electric is a big leap when throwing down that 50K for the family truck. I guess we'll see.
It’s probably not going to immediately outsell the F-150 in Montana, but I bet it will quickly become Tesla’s best selling vehicle I’m willing to bet. Long term (5-20 years), people in Montana will come around to accepting electric vehicles.
Everyone else in this thread is saying the styling is a negative, but they couldn’t be more wrong.
I find it awesome. Kudos to Tesla for willingness to experiment with form and functionality. The car industry nowadays is all too predictable and boring. Great job Elon.
Sadly, that's not the case. Car companies are just trying to catch up with whatever seems to sell at the moment. And if there's a new model, it is usually related to a some "successful model" from the past or an existing model is given a crossover look. And even these new cars have too many issues.
You know what would've generated as much conversation? Just an electric truck with towing capability and decent range. They didn't need to make it looks so awful to generate conversation.
As a car guy, this is an amazing truck. Dual-motor can easily tow track car and all necessary gear. Built-in compressor means you can use air-tools on the go without a generator. Maybe even fit a quick jack in the trunk or trailer. AND it drives itself to the track. Never need to bring spare batteries for tools. It’s insane that it can do this, and likely win every drag race against street cars. All while blasting the Bladerunner theme on max volume.
This thing may be ugly but there are other concerns for people using this like a real truck.
-The bed is not easily accessible from the sides
-It's unibody(ask Honda about that)
-It's stainless steel which would make repairing difficult. You will now have to paint that raw steel after hammering out any dents after an accident just like the Delorean
Thank you! I was thinking the same things. More concerned about using the vehicle as a pickup than the design. I didn't see places to mount a rack, and only a few places that might be holes for straps.
Do you know what is involved in "hammering" out dents in a collision and how the metal looks after? Also you may need to then fill some surface irregularities with a filler.
This is why Deloreans that got into accidents were usually painted.
Of course if you can easily replace an entire panel with a new one, this can be done.
On cars the rear quarter panel cant be "replaced" like the front quarter panel which is just bolted on.
The design looks like a prepper's wet dream. But the pricing is incredible. Like $3k more than the Model Y's base model. And half as much as Rivian's base model, with the top end model costing the same as Rivian' base. Cybertruck wins in every spot but design against the Rivian, IMO. Frankly, some people I know that buy trucks would buy the Cybertruck because it looks badass (to some), like a stealth fighter.
I kept waiting for the sledgehammer guy to hit it and the walls to fall off, with a real truck inside.
I think they're going to be dealing with the slow ramp up that Tesla had for years before hitting mass production. Maybe they will release first, but at a decent volume? I'm skeptical.
Then again Tesla is well known for missing deadlines too!
AS a Truck Guy who has owned a lot of Trucks and Currently owns a F-150 XLT 4x4 and has Owns no less than 8 other Trucks and SUV's from Ford....
This is going to flop, big time. This is the worst looking Truck I have seen in a LONG time, this will not appeal to people that buy the Best selling Truck on the market, The F-150.
I have no interest in buying this, and i would not drive it even if they gave me one for free. Sure the performance is there, ofcourse when Ford and other manufactures release their Electric Trucks then when can do a Apple to Apple comparison.
I will be waiting on the Electric F-150, which should have comparable specs to the Rivian, and I would much rather have a Rivian Truck than this monstrosity
Why is this being downvoted? It's an opposing view and they are being honest. I ordered a Model X, getting it in two weeks, and am looking for a pickup truck to eventually move to after the Model X. I would not buy this, sorry. People like me will compare Rivian to CyberTruck and I think it's a natural comparison. We aren't going to compare traditional pickups, though, because people like me don't want an ICE pickup truck. With that said, why would I not buy a Rivian? The plan is to wait till they've produced it for a year, compare to current electric pickup market, take advantage of Federal Tax credit of Rivian and evaluate if it's worth it. I am the suburban guy, I am a Tesla buyer, and I pride myself on engineering + beautiful design. Tesla HAD that for all their vehicles, imo. Cybertruck is a niche vehicle, I wish it well, I grew up in the 80's so it is nostalgic but omg it makes me want to vomit. Sorry, I wanted to buy it, really did, but 80's design for cars, clothes, and hairstyles was a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from, kinda like the shirt that stopped halfway down your waist. I am not an 80's fan....born 1977.
In my case, while I like the aesthetic, I think aesthetic considerations aren't supposed to figure into buying a truck. Trucks exist to do work, buying one on aesthetics seems counter to the whole reason to own a truck in the first place.
> I think aesthetic considerations aren't supposed to figure into buying a truck
Oh, geez. "Truck guys" in the US are some of the most opinionated, style-conscious folks you will ever meet in an automotive context. They're really something if you ever find yourself hanging out with them.
I believe you. But truck guys don't discuss the style of their truck, how pretty it is. They brag about how they abused it or carried unreal loads or took it where no road legal vehicle should ever go.
Even if the Cybertruck kicks ass on the road, it's not going to impress these guys. And if they're the target market for this new truck, Tesla's in trouble.
No, they really do talk incessantly about style and looks. Really. Including flamewars about which manufacturer has 'ugly' or 'beautiful' characteristics.
Weird. I worked with a lot of truck guys in Canada for a while, and I'd be extremely comfortable mocking any of them for mentioning they care about the exterior look of their truck. A lot of contractors will even deliberately make their work vehicles look rougher so customers don't think they're charging enough.
Interior aesthetic is a different matter though. Strange how culture winds that way.
Neither are true, Some Trucks exisit to do work, some are bought because of Aesthetic's not different than sports cars or anything else.
Not every buys a Truck purely for work. Just like not everyone buys a car just for transportation.
Further even if you remove the Aestetic debate over the Cyber Truck, for Work is not practical, any contractor will tell you side access is VERY VERY important, the truck bed on this is completely impractical for traditional work people do in a truck
At first I was dumbfounded. Like, they cannot be serious.
Then after a little while of looking at it, I thought, well, perhaps it is just crazy enough to work. Definitely thinking outside the box.
Then a bit later in the evening, I was struck by how in the space of a couple hours it had aged in my eyes, and it wasn't aging well. As soon as the 'interesting' wore off, all I can see is how boring the design really is.
By itself, maybe not such a big deal, pickups aren't meant to be exciting. They are successful because of their utility. King of the road, riding high, the modern incarnation of a 70s land yacht, very spacious inside, well appointed, and incidentally able to haul stuff when you want, pull stuff when you want. The very definition of function over form. The opposite of Cybertruck.
I'll wait and see how it plays out, since this is obviously a prototype of a prototype (read MotorTrend's writeup, they had early access and it was still coming together in the last couple weeks). The windows aren't street legal, the bumpers are not street legal, almost certainly the headlights and taillights aren't, etc. A lot of the actual finished product has yet to be designed, so I will withhold judgement until we see what it turns out to be.
I had a similar then different reaction . First I didn’t think it was real. Then I thought it was hideous. Now after looking at and reading about it more I’m starting to like it. I’m hoping Tesla starts using more of the same design cues in their other products.
I agree that electric trucks are important to combat climate change, but wow. If their goal is to sell to the market that buys pickup trucks, I think the styling is way off the mark.
Huge, beastly trucks are a status symbol and signalling to others that you are are certain demographic. Same reason some people buy cheap cars and add shiny wheels and lights. Same reason some people buy BMWs and Mercedes. These are all part of socioeconomic norms. I don't see how the normal truck crowd will latch on to this.
The specs are pretty impressive though. 500 mile range got my attention.
Rest assured, if you slap a "Punisher" sticker on this thing, it will be welcome at any roadside bar in Texas. It looks like the sort of thing the SEALs would roll up in.
I don't think we can know how the market that buys pickup trucks will react to this without running the experiment. Pickup truck buyers haven't had the option of buying a pickup truck that doesn't look like a conventional pickup truck.
Is the normal truck crowd going to latch onto a $70k truck?
I think this is going to resonate really well with techies. Not a huge demographic, but one that can afford it.
The market for sci-fi/cyberpunk cars won't be huge, but in exchange, this looks like it'll capture _all_ of that market, as opposed to a small slice of a more conventional one.
I appreciate Tesla for taking the pick up truck use cases and building something from scratch. This is the first pick up truck I’ve ever thought to myself “makes sense and I want it.” The ICE trucks have needy engines and most of the time the power is unused. The air suspension seems like a natural fit and I’m surprised it’s not already common place. I would love to take the Cybertruck off-roading. I’m also excited to see these on the road. It will make my inner kid feel like we finally made it to the future.
>The air suspension seems like a natural fit and I’m surprised it’s not already common place.
IIRC this was a thing on land rovers back in the day, and was notoriously unreliable. It's a great idea in theory, but much more difficult to get right than a bunch of steel springs.
Don't forget to adjust those mpg figures by ~13% for the higher energy density (and CO2 emissions) for diesel vs gasoline. So 30mpg diesel is ~ like 26.5 mpg gasoline.
It did, and it is now. This is one of those things that's trivial to check before you tell someone they're wrong. Not everyone could watch it exactly live. Everyone who was was kicked out.
Aesthetically speaking, it's a truck version of a DeLorean... which is growing on me the more I look at it.
Also, I don't know how they think they're going to get away with that tailgate design in the US. I love it, but the government doesn't allow brakelights to be on a moveable piece of bodywork (even though they have redundant lights under it). It's the same reason the back of the Ferrari California was so ugly... Ferrari learned this fact too late in the development process:
Yes, good catch. A driver's side mirror is required, passenger's side is optional (but recommended). But, there is some lobbying going on right now to allow cameras in place of mirrors (GM specifically is trying to get the new Corvette C8 rear view camera approved, which I'm guessing won't happen for launch in early 2020).
There are cars going on sale in the EU market (Audi E-tron, Honda E) with cameras replacing the side view mirrors. Presumably at some point these will also be allowed in the US.
I'm a child of the 80s. I remember StarFox and the F-117 stealth plane being the neatest stuff ever. The old lambo countache with the faceted shape that was almost starwars-y and was the coolest thing on wheels.
I'm nostalgic about those things.
So this polygonal look is targeting my demo.
...
That is the goddamned ugliest vehicle I've ever seen.
What I find fascinating is how strong my negative visceral reaction to that thing is. It's a car. Who gives a shit whether it looks "good"? What even is my internal metric for "looks good"? I have no idea, but, God, this thing is revolting.
My hunch is that this is because we use some of the same mental wiring for processing human faces to process the front of a car. (Automotive designers refer to the front of a car as its "face".) So we think it's ugly because some of the same wiring that recoils to disfiguring human faces is kicking in.
Unlike say the Aztec, this truck is “radically functional” design. No paint and simple geometry make it easier to manufacture and more durable.
I don’t think the mandate was “make this look strange” as much as it was “make this thing rugged and fast and powerful and we’re perfectly fine with it looking strange”.
We’ll see if they were successful, but I like the ambition. I’ll be curious, too, to see if some of this more radical thinking comes over to the Tesla Semi.
What aspects make you think it’s not useful as a work truck? I’ve done construction and see quite a bit of appeal. Fits 6 people, lockable bed cover, good towing capabilities, rugged body construction, no paint job to ruin, onboard power and compressed air...
Unibody construction means it’ll be a write off if the bed is damaged. Compare this with other trucks where the bed is bolted on, allowing for functional modifications to the truck: flat beds, boxes, or even just towing certain types of trailers. And if you damage the bed on those types of trucks, you can replace it for a relatively low cost.
Sure, if you’re just throwing a tool box in the back then you’re fine. Then again you didn’t need a truck to begin with.
First of all, a unibody construction doesn't mean that the complete bed is part of the body, there could be parts on top of a foundation which can be easily removed. Also, steel means, it better repairable than any other car material. You can reasonably easy cut out parts and weld in new sheets. That most of the surfaces of the truck are flat makes this even easier.
You must have missed the part about how the steel is stainless. And also welding is extremely labor intensive, and time consuming. The flat body panels actually make this harder, because you can't warp the panels or else it will be extremely obvious. And if there's no paint, there's no filling in dents with body filler, it requires absolute precision, and metalworking skills which haven't been around for years in the auto body collision industry. I can't tell if it actually has paint or not, but you should look up how a small dent is fixed in a Delorean.
1. How many work trucks have you seen with a toolbox in the bed - almost all of them? How would you access one in this thing without literally climbing into the box?
2. How do you carry a ladder, roof rack, or box on this thing?
3. Where do I tie down the countless odd-shaped items that a work truck carries?
4. How do I mount a deck for bigger equipment on this truck?
5. Is 250 top range enough for a work truck that does field service and likely hauls significant weight?
This thing is less truck than the original Honda Ridgeline and that's saying something. You'll see one at the mall before you see one in the field.
I was discussing this the other day with an automotive designer. Yes Fiat Multipla is ugly, but imagine the courage Roberto Giolito (the designer of Multipla) had when he proposed this to the management of FCA! Almost nobody in modern automotive industry dares to match this outside of the concept cars.
The Multipla was also very successful, and also happens to be one of the few Fiats that hold their value. A utility vehicle doesn't necessarily need to be attractive to be successful...
The aesthetics of the Multipla didn't look out of place in China, where it was sold as the Zotye Multiplan and
Zotye M300 Langyue.
As China's economy grew a number of American truck/van designs started looking more weird to western eyes like the Multipla than anything the likes of Dodge had previously designed. Designs target intended markets first and foremost.
On the rare occasions I see a Multipla in real life, I actually have feeling* of disgust and revulsion - it really is a hideously ugly car.
I think there is something insect-like about the bulbous part that houses the lights - I wonder if perhaps something about the shape is triggering something innate, similar to how we may be hard-wired to fear snakes?
For those still unclear: it's a type of tumor that basically grows things in places they're not normally supposed to be. "Things" including cartilage, hair and teeth.
I think it's mostly the people that think it's too radical of a change. They expected Tesla to release a more conventional vehicle that looks like other trucks now. Considering that the first Tesla cars looked at least somewhat like the ICE cars in their class, it wasn't an unreasonable assumption.
Also, the geometry of the body is more functional that it is for form and that probably puts at least a few people off.
Totally. I doodled this truck all of the time. However, I'm not sure if the 70k USD model will be equipped with external rockets and bazookas like my sketches predicted
Well, from a utility point of view not to bad. Earlier Defenders could be used as generators for farming machines. And having compressed air isn't the worst thing to have. Doesn't change the fact that it is ugly as f*.
I completely agree its ugly, but from a utility point of view, this this is awesome. Not having to carry around ramps? Check. Power? Check. Compressed air? Check. Room for four people? Check. And, at a range of 500 miles at the top end, finally a vehicle I can drive the whole way across the state without a recharge. The prices listed on the Tesla site are even very competitive.
Will be very interesting to see how middle America responds. Truck buyers tend to be a traditionalist bunch.
The earliest stick welding equipment was a room full of lead acid batteries. You only need about 24-48v for welding, tesla batteries are closer to 400v but I am sure they could find a way.
I owned an Aztek and it was actually one of my more favorite cars because I could sleep in it if needed. I also really loved the Honda Element. I spend many a night at a beach and was very comfortable.
Sadly, totalled it in May 1990 avoiding an animal that ran out in front of me on a two lane country road with gravel, going a bit too fast. avoided the animal, thankfully, and wanted a new 900 turbo since, but they were only made a few more years.
Damn pitty, but as long as you weren't hurt who really cares about a car? They are getting rare, looked them up the other day. But then I realized one 82 car is the max I might be allowed!
My current car is a '08 euro Civic (FN2), your typical hot hatch. Or maybe not! Fold the back seats down and the floor is flat, long/large enough to drop a camping mat or two and fall asleep while looking at the stars up through the rear window.
The design was very divisive when it rolled out but I find it still looks awesome ten years down the road.
You know what I'm tired of? Every 4-door sedan on the road looking like the same boring bar of soap on wheels. It's gotten to the point where all major car brands are indistinguishable from each other besides small details like the grill and headlights. Nobody has any imagination anymore. You guys laughing at "ugly" cars are part of the problem, and the reason why car manufacturers won't take any risks anymore.
That's the understated truth. All you do today is add a small detail like a full width light bar in the back and that's enough to distinguish the vehicle as unique or new or whatever.
I think it's one of the reasons I like cars like the Kia Soul so much. They look… fun.
It actually has less to do with buyers and more to do with European pedestrian collision standards. Basically, modern cars are shaped to make sure that if they hit a pedestrian they'll safely roll onto the hood and off.
"In Europe, it is Nissan's second best-selling car behind the Qashqai. U.S. sales of the Juke are slowing in 2015, but the crossover sold 38,000 units in 2013 and 2014, and about 36,000 copies in 2011 and 2012.[28]"
Tesla doesn't have the manufacturing capacity to sell a truck to everybody, and people that love something are willing to pay more than people who only mildly like something, so it makes sense that they would design a highly polarizing truck that a few people loved but everybody else hated. It's reminiscent of the economic model of fursuit manufacturers.
I 100% disagree, and believe what you're doing is the classic English Major grasping for meaning where none was implied.
I think what we're seeing is what happens when there is no one around to say 'no' to a company. Tesla is being fed, by everyone in at least the US, that they are the future and are prophets of what is to come.
So you take the attitude of 'I can do nothing wrong' and add a dash of Musk's inherent God-Complex, and mix it into the culture there.
This is absurd. Tesla has had a period of danger of bankrupting every two years for its entire existence. Each of which they pulled out of by doubling deliveries.
They’re quite possibly the only car company who has had actual skin in the game in recent years.
The rest of them just went begging to Daddy (Congress) when they got themselves fully fucked.
Your notion that GM,
Ford, etc are somehow living in “the real world” seems willfully ignorant of history.
my comment:
>I 100% disagree, and believe what you're doing is the classic English Major grasping for meaning where none was implied.
>I think what we're seeing is what happens when there is no one around to say 'no' to a company. Tesla is being fed, by everyone in at least the US, that they are the future and are prophets of what is to come.
>So you take the attitude of 'I can do nothing wrong' and add a dash of Musk's inherent God-Complex, and mix it into the culture there.
>And this is what you get.
>That's my theory.
Where are you reading whatever it is you're reading about "the rest"? Who are you replying to?
The average consumer of a truck cares about the looks. Unless the Cybertruck allows buyers to address a use case that is so compelling that they're willing to excuse the looks, Tesla is not going to sell many of these.
Maybe Tesla is banking on luring people who don't usually buy trucks, or that truck buyers are so hungry for an EV that they'll go for it. But someone who doesn't usually buy trucks, would just buy a Model 3 or Y.
Traditional truck buyers tend to be fiercely loyal to their brand so they'd probably be more likely to wait for EV versions from the favorite truck brand.
Yes. Existing truck owners will not buy this truck. They will be afraid they will be laughed at by other truck owners like themselves.
Trucks are very much a product that identifies you as "one of us" vs "one of them". The Cybertruck will fail that test utterly. Owning one screams "I'm one of THEM". Not what you want if you want to make inroads in the mainstream pickup market. (Not to mention that recharging a truck with a 220V line in rural America, where folks often park nowhere near their house, will be a major problem.)
Yes, this truck will be popular initially among well-heeled yuppies who want to stand out -- probably taken entirely from the existing Tesla S market (or S wannabes). But unless you leave SF/NYC/Boston every once in a while, you don't realize how small that world really is. No more than 5% of this country can afford an S. And while this truck is more affordable than an S, its appeal is much narrower. It will attract only the vanishingly small Venn intersection space that's Tesla S + pickup-drivers-who-don't-actually-haul-anything.
This thing will flash on the radar for a year or two, in small sales numbers, then die utterly, with poor sales used thereafter, once the fashionista bloom fades.
Do you realize how much full sized diesel trucks cost? They typically start at $50k, and can be configured close to $100k. People are buying them. Whether they can afford them, who knows, but they do sell. Flyover country is not broke. Plenty of these expensive trucks around here; I drive a Leaf.
Good point though about the outdoor charging, but running an external charger is cheap and easy on rural property. Some diesels have block heaters anyway.
What will be interesting to see is the range when towing. This thing will have the torque of 350 diesels, but what about the range in towing, compared to dual tanks. Operating costs could be far less with electricity.
Yep. Phoenix resident here; can confirm that expensive full-size trucks are the norm for well-heeled folk of all cultural strata in this region. I live in a fairly affluent section of the city and big, costly pickup trucks are _far_ more common than luxury sedans or especially sports cars.
That market probably includes me. I bought a new Honda Ridgeline this year -- a truck that many consider not to be a 'real' truck since it doesn't go offroad or haul 7000+ pound loads. The Cybertruck will surely suffer the same fate.
Are there enough buyers out there of quasi-trucks for the Cybertruck to thrive (no) much less survive (doubtful). Even now, Honda isn't selling as many of their quasi-trucks as they hoped since that market stratum is not as predictable as other more stereotypeable strata like minivans or commuters or... big pickups.
I don't know what motivates a mainstream carmaker to build a niche product like this. But whatever is motivating Tesla to build the Cybertruck smacks of the same cluelessness that gave us the Hummer. And the Edsel.
> Unless the Cybertruck allows buyers to address a use case that is so compelling that they're willing to excuse the looks
I'd say "off-road-capable truck that requires no gas and has better specs and lower pricepoints than nearly all other electric pickups" is pretty compelling. The only electric pickup coming up (to my knowledge) that looks more compelling than this is the Atlis XT.
It gives the yuppies an ugly ass brodozer that out-bros the F350s and other 3500 pickups on the market, without the coal rolling.
And they'll be faster in a straight line too, so they can now get their e-peen off beating out the big, modded 600hp diesels and laughing about how they are so much more eco-friendly.
Are you really going with the "they made it ugly on purpose to avoid selling too many of them" defense? Come on just because this is tesla doesn't mean you need to be realistic. It's a multiplia, someone had a brain fart and we end up with a fugly. It happens.
But such a stylish dystopia! Its kind of like how preppers talk excitedly about the breakdown of civilization. Some part of them wants that to happen because they envision it as a world they are more suited to survive in, an in some cases that might even be true for people whose primary skills are combat and wilderness survival. A world where the benefits of social intelligence or physical strength are dwarfed by those of technical prowess makes the worlds of snowcrash or neuromancer alluring to people that have or think they have that technical prowess.
I'm not sure we read the same Snowcrash. Yeah, Hiro had to be a good hacker, but he was also fucking killer with a blade. There was a lot of very physical activity in that book (and the world in general).
Elon literally said as much during a previous earnings call. They were going to make it polarizing and then walk it back to a more conservative design if sales were too low.
Interesting. Honda did the same thing with their late entry into the pickup market, the Ridgeline. The first generation (2006-2014) was a polarizing design. (But I liked it.) The second gen (2017-present) looks more mainstream and is a bit more functional but lacks the disruptive panache of gen 1. I like it less, but actually bought one. So who knows what will happen with Tesla. Maybe its weirdness will soften into something more sustainable given time.
You realize for every person who thinks it’s ugly another things it’s fucking awesome? Yes, I think it looks fucking awesome and can’t wait to buy one. Also my friends at work felt similarly.
Weird how some people have different opinions on subjective matters right??
Not that it isn't fugly but I think they purposely do not want it to look like any other pickup because their target market includes a lot of people who don't like the image pickups often project.
A well compensated white collar professional will get judged hard for driving a pickup in some social circles and I think this styling is to help get around that.
I'm a well-compensated white collar professional in the bay area. I drive a 23yo bigass diesel pickup that I use for offroading, towing, hauling, camping, etc.
I don't get judged hard at all. Most folks thing it's quirky. I'd say I get judged more positively than not.
In NorCal outside of the bay area there are plenty of pickup trucks and the culture that goes with that.
My 2016 f150 gets 12.7 l/100km highway, closer to 27 mpg.
edit: woops 12.7 l/100km is actually 18.5 mpg. All these years I thought 10l/100km was 30 mpg! must have done the conversion wrong once and been basing my whole life off it ever since. It's great to find out something you thought was true is not sometimes.
That's OK. My 2019 Ridgeline gets 30 MPG highway, about 20 MPG city. That's an advantage of living in the US -- our gas mileage formula is more intuitive.
You don't need to own a pickup truck just because you need to haul or tow things three of five times per year. You can own a more economical car and rent a pickup if / when you need it.
fwiw I live in a place where everyone owns a pickup (I use mine to plow snow, pull a gravel dump trailer, and to collect large items from Costco) but I never hear of anyone renting a pickup. I'm sure it's possible somehow but I doubt you can just roll into Hertz and sign out an F-250..
At the Hertz down the street from work I can rent a cherry-picker or a forklift if I want (definitely not an airport Hertz). Pretty sure a pickup wouldn’t be asking too much. I’ll check next time I walk by. Me, I just rent my trucks from Home Depot.
I'm a big fan of sticking things on the roofs of station wagons. A lot of things (sheet material and long things) are easier to haul this way than in a truck bed or minivan.
That said, having more vehicle than you need is definitely a means of social signalling and if you're regularly shoving 5 people in your 5-seat compact or regularly hauling large things on the roof of your car or regularly burying your AWD mom-mobile in the mud you will give off lower class vibes so I understand why a lot of people buy more vehicle than they strictly need.
You can actually. Friends of mine rented one for a group camping trip a couple years back. Worked pretty well. A quick google search shows that Enterprise and Avis will both rent you one.
> I'm sure it's possible somehow but I doubt you can just roll into Hertz and sign out an F-250.
I don't know about an F-250, but the last time I rented a car it was a walk-in at an Enterprise in Harrisburg, PA and I walked out with a Nissan pickup 30-ish minutes later.
Also, your average Home Depot or U-Haul typically has pickups for rent, specifically for this use case.
If I had to rent a pickup truck on short notice, I'd hit up U-Haul, who has a bunch of them.
Last time I had to leave my car in the body shop after it was hit, my insurance got me a rental car from Enterprise. The only rentals available at the time were F-250s, so I drove a pickup truck to work and back for a week.
Why do you think that pick up trucks are unrentable?
I live in Norcal and had a little Toyota pickup. I had more than one lady from the city be very impressed "oooh a truck, its so manly!". Where Im from a little Tacoma truck is not really a truck. Truck culture is not really a city thing out here.
Come now. Most of the people who drive pickups rarely if ever use them to tow or haul things. They drive pickups because driving anything else means you're gay, or communist, or smoke marijuana.
Judged for driving the WRONG type of pickup. Ford Raptors are quite popular with techy car folks cause they're "performance vehicles" so it indicates you aren't the wrong kind of person.
Also the older the truck, the more OK it is (ironic considering older trucks are horrible on gas mileage) because then its a quirky hipster thing.
Suppose thats kind of the point you're making though, they're building a pickup that has indicators that its OK for "classy" people to drive.
The risk with making your product mostly a fashion statement is that you may appeal to too few people or to many people but not enough for them to fork over $45K for the limited utility. Unlike the Raptor, the Cybertruck has no machismo. This truck will sell only if enough people are willing to buy into its singular sense of style way over its utility. That's a bold bet.
A more-useless-than-average truck (no bed capacity; a back seat w/ headroom for children only; difficulty refueling or getting repairs in the backcountry; very high center of gravity) will have limited appeal aside from the novelty from being the first to own one. But that will fade within year one of ownership. Then where will non-pickup owners find themselves? With an especially fashion-motivated vehicle that's no longer fashionable. Or useful. Strike three.
> A well compensated white collar professional will get judged hard for driving a pickup in some social circles and I think this styling is to help get around that.
I think Tesla could've met that desire without making the truck look like a low-polygon model from a teenager who just learned to use Blender.
Tesla's design language from it's other models could have been smartly applied to a truck design and they would've had a winner.
I'd be curious to see a definition of "in some social circles". In particular, I'd like to see what parts of the country those social circles exist in.
Because I'm in Dallas, and wealthy white-collar professionals driving big pickup trucks is pretty normal here. I could point out several in my company's parking lot.
The kind of people who are worried about the image driving a truck will project upon them simply don't buy trucks. They'd rather buy a model Y or a Model X anyway.
- desire to explore a more radical design language for the company. They’ve had to be very conservative for past vehicles because Model S, Model 3, etc were programs that had to succeed or the company would fail. This is the first time they have some financial breathing room
- they likely prioritized ease of manufacturing over everything else. I think long term that’s where the company is going
- They really can use all the capacity they have planned for the next couple of years for Model Y. They just don’t have capacity to add a line at F-150 scale. I don’t even know where they will build it... not likely in Fremont. Maybe Berlin. Maybe in a new American factory? Either way, it’ll probably be one of the first programs in a new factory.
So, yes, I think they really do not want to sell a lot of these. And yes, they’d be happy with a tiny market amongst electric enthusiasts.
I'd rather sell 100% at 10x the cost than 10% at 10x the cost. What's the benefit of deliberately reducing demand? Why not sell 10% at 100x instead of 10% at 10x by producing something that actually appeals to more, and is desirable by more?
They made the look polarizing and a bit extreme for free PR. For the first few years after launch, every time it's seen on the road, people will talk about whether they love it or hate it. If they made it look like the F-150, most people wouldn't even notice.
For what it's worth, the designer of the Renault Twingo (another polarizing design) said something similar way back in the day. Better to design something 20% of people love and 80% of people hate than design something everyone just thinks is okay.
I think that is a bad joke rather than a legitimate plan to pressurize the vehicle. The fact that it is coming from Elon's Twitter and not Tesla's is a big indicator in my opinion. Either way, it isn't a great sign that we can't tell for sure.
I think it will be partly true. Assuming Elon's Mars missions happen, it seems reasonable they'll need a vehicle at some point and I expect that vehicle will use some elements from the CyberTruck design.
I just can't imagine them needing this type of vehicle anytime soon. The first car on the moon was unpressurized because the only real benefit to pressurizing the vehicle is if the astronauts don't need to be wearing pressurized suits inside. That would either mean that there are car sized airlocks to travel between or that the astronauts will be traveling long enough distances in the car that it provides a real comfort benefit for them to take off some of their suits. Neither of those is likely to happen on the first trips to Mars.
Even then, this truck doesn't appear particularly light compared to your average vehicle. It also has a ton of added weight from things that would be wasted on Mars like huge acceleration, unnecessary top speed, and the ability to withstand vehicular accidents that would never occur on Mars. Maybe Tesla tries to preserve the look of this car for whatever they may or may not eventually put on Mars, but I doubt it is going to be close to being this car.
Why would a car-size airlock be required? A simple airtight hatch for the car to dock to (similar to a suitport) would work fine.
The first car on the moon was unpressurized because the program was a once-cancelled afterthought designed to fit into a spare cargo bay and unfold, with tight mass constraints. MOLAB was impractical because of the upmass required, not because pressurization wouldn't have been useful.
>Why would a car-size airlock be required? A simple airtight hatch for the car to dock to (similar to a suitport) would work fine.
Fair point. I don't see how that would work on this specific vehicle, but it is certainly works in general.
>The first car on the moon was unpressurized because the program was a once-cancelled afterthought designed to fit into a spare cargo bay and unfold, with tight mass constraints. MOLAB was impractical because of the upmass required, not because pressurization wouldn't have been useful.
A lot of those requirements still stand regarding mass. It isn't a question of whether a pressurized vehicle would be useful on Mars, it is a question of whether its usefulness is enough to justify its weight and this vehicle appears to have a lot of extra weight that would need justification.
This vehicle is probably pretty light if you source the steel and the battery pack from a starship that has landed on mars. Starships have both. The plan isn't to return all of the initial starships because the steel is more useful on mars, and the energy to return them back would be really expensive.
>Neither of those is likely to happen on the first trips to Mars.
It doesn't have to happen on the first trip. They could send the truck to Mars on one of the current rockets and just have it sit there until they're ready to use it. It's an electric vehicle. There's plenty of solar exposure on Mars, they can charge it over the course of weeks if they needed to, even though they don't, and the durability would guarantee that it could serve up there for years. It could literally just sit there and do nothing for the 3-5 years it takes them to build out a basic hab and a dock for it.
If we are ruling it out on the first few trips, then we are probably ruling it out for at least a decade or probably longer. I would bet the Earth version of this truck isn't going to go a decade plus without being redesigned by Tesla.
All your points about the benefits of an electric vehicle apply just as well to something lighter that is specifically and only designed for travel to and on Mars.
What? What makes you say that? SpaceX literally shot Elon Musk's car into space to do nothing but float towards Mars. The entire point is prove that their rockets can shoot something that weighs a metric ton out to Mars safely. They don't want to send something lighter that's only designed for travel to and on Mars. They want to send something from Earth to Mars that proves they can send out the materials and supplies to colonize the planet quickly.
Most of the mass that goes with that acceleration is the battery, which also extends the range, and that you do need because superchargers are scarce on Mars. It's also nice to have a rugged vehicle when you don't have body shops.
In general, Musk treats engineering as a scarce resource. If he can use a Tesla vehicle instead of designing a special rover, he will, even if it weighs a little more. Starship can handle more than 100 tons of payload and its successor will do four times that.
Designing stuff is really expensive, using things made for Earth with minimal modifications really makes a lot of sense.
The steel is cheap on mars too (initially), since you ship it there anyways as part of the cargo starships, which aren't return to earth (since the energy to make fuel is initially really expensive on mars). Manufacture it in Mars and your basically just talking about shipping the batteries, motors, and a small amount of electronics (and machinery you will need anyways).
Don't get me wrong, I hope that little to no consideration was given to mars in the design. But if we happen to get to mars on Elon's most aggressive time tables (2025 iirc) it would make sense to base the vehicles on mars after this rather than designing from scratch. And it would make sense to keep the modifications reasonably minimal if possible.
No, it really wouldn’t. The base requirements differ so greatly that starting from scratch would be both cheaper and more practical. They are not different takes on the same vehicle, they are two fundamentally different automotives with extremely different terrain, durability, maintainability, and optimization goals. From the very start it is virtually impossible to go from a unibody design like this cyber truck to a true all-terrain body-on-frame construction and everything else depends on that.
And trying to design an optimal vehicle for mars is how you bloat the costs of your rover program by many many millions of dollars. Downmass is expensive, engineering is more expensive. The result of that is to take advantage of the fact that "mass cures a lot of sins" (Paul Wooster, SpaceX Principal Mars Development Engineer at Mars Society Convention 2019).
> true all-terrain body-on-frame construction
Why would you prefer this? It's just a form of construction that requires more materials, and results in a weak body that can be damaged. Furthermore, we get all the materials for the unibody design (lots of stainless steel) free from starships that won't return, and the material is easy to work with.
Mar's terrain is pretty simple. Rocks, and sand. We almost certainly will choose not to land on sand, so we only really need to deal with rocks. Cybertruck, really any earth vehicle with a reasonable clearance, should be able to deal with that well enough, maybe with some custom tires.
Thermal management, and problems relating to pressurization, are the only things that jump out as me as real difficulties. Neither sounds like it needs fundamental reworks though.
The SEC should have a chat with Elon about that. He already put one of his cars in space, and owns a company trying to get to Mars. That puts it at about 80% joke in my mind.
I’m not so sure. As Elon said “We’re going to be using the same alloy in the Starship rocket and in the Cybertruck”. The Tesla truck itself might be a way to subsidize the SpaceX rocket development (or vice versa). It sounds like technology between the two entities is being shared already.
So, the idea is to use a presurized Cybertruck as a, I assume manned, rover on mars in 2025. So there will be a manned mission to mars in 2025 supposedly conducted by SpaceX. Otherwise the economics of using something as large and heavy as a Cybertruck is just not feasible.
With Tesla's work on autodriving capabilities, I'm kind of hoping this might be Musk's personal R/C car on Mars as an unmanned rover concept before humans get there.
One thing that puzzles me, and that is also a big reason for me being sceptical towards Musk, is that almost of his ideas are stuff I phantasized about in my teens because they were "cool". But with all cool things from your teens, they turn ridiculous when you grow up. And unprofessional in the industries SpaceX and Tesla are in. A remote controlled Cybertruck on Mars? Technically already now feasible but expensive and pointless to get there. Not sure what Musk being able to finance all that is good thing.
If something is both immaturely "cool", and immensely practical/ecofriendly/a good choice, we can all fulfill our childhood dreams while being responsible adults. Fart mode in the Tesla is a good example. Hilarious, stupid, and in some of the best and eco-friendliest cars ever.
And stuff like that just so kills Tesla for me. All that late stuff that came after, say, Model S or at least Model 3 looks more like Musks version of buying a Porsche convertible aged 45.
And you're probably the wrong demographic. I'm 18 and taking delivery of my Model S on Monday, because I can't afford the roadster and it's not out yet. Tesla is simply the future, and it's on a roll right now.
Tesla does: https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-wildfires-bioweapon-defe.... It's an optional upgrade. I ordered it for my Model S because, at the time, Hawaii was experiencing really bad VOG, which my girlfriend was extremely sensitive to. On bad days, she could retreat to the Tesla, activate BioWeapon Defense mode, and experience some relief.
I mean... a good respirator is like $30-40. Significant savings over a Model S, and you're not stuck in the car. But I suppose wearing a mask can be uncomfortable.
You can take any car to a racetrack and drive as fast as you like for a couple of hundred dollars per event. You can even get professional instruction.
those events do not let you go as fast as you like.
there ARE some events that do but its a really bad idea in a car with no cage and safety equipment.
I've found that my stomach for speed is inversely proportional to how fast I'm allowed to go. I'm not sure I have the stones to go fast enough to need a roll cage on a race track.
Same goes for off-roading. Luckily I live like an hour away from a big parc in Germany so my 1982 Range Rover can enjoy his natural environment at least a couple of times! Logically totally useless, but hell of fun!
The Vaporwave aesthetic goes beyond mere 80's nostalgia into a sort of fetishism. Normally, targeting fetishists is a bit niche; but Tesla has hit on a lot of success targeting market segments that everyone else thought were tiny niches.
I think the truck was built w/ spaceX in mind [1].
You can probably manufacture that thing quite easily from basic sheet metal, when you have limited machinery and labour on another planet.
I think part of the problem is that cars are getting bigger and roomier, and loaded with more features and safety equipment. I feel like, in general, larger vehicles are less attractive, and when you design bigger trunks, larger engine bays, thicker doors with higher walls, longer bodies for cabin space, and so on, cars just start looking less sleek. Completely generalizing and spitballing here, though.
The Hummer was also based on a US military vehicle from the gulf war, which gives it a lot of cachet with people who want a powerful (or want to project an image of power) vehicle. I don't doubt a lot of people will buy one of these things, but I don't see it coming anywhere close to the popularity of the hummer.
I don't know, I think those are exactly the people he's going after with the brutalist look, high tow ratings, nearly 2 ton payload, hardened steel exterior, so on & so forth. He didn't talk about how it was bullet resistant to appease the Model S crowd.
I think the hummer is a really good comparison here. The ground clearance and low center of gravity of the cybertruck will most likely give it legendary off road capabilities. I can't wait to see some footage of one at moab or something.
Depends what kind of off-road. A lot of off-road involves fairly narrow tracks and tight spaces. This is a large vehicle compared to, say, a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon.
In fairness, 4x4 pickups do get used (out of necessity) in work situations where the roads can be pretty bad. A lot of oilfield work for example. But that's often a lot different from the sort of off-roading that a lot of people do recreationally where tracks can be really narrow and a short turning radius (and wheelbase) can be really useful.
Brutalism is ugly. There are no beautiful brutalist buildings though there are plenty of interesting ones. It’s like the joke about how everyone in central Paris wants to work in the Tour Montparnasse because then you can’t see the Tour Montparnasse.
Not true. Their starkness and utilitarianism is beautiful, in the eye of the right beholder - and I am one such beholder. I think brutalist architecture is beautiful as it’s bold in its intent, honest in its functional form (it has thingness), and speaks of dreams of the future. I look at a well-executed brutalist structure and get a shiver down my spine - it’s not the thing itself, but what it represents.
Brutalism has a deep beauty, that ramifies intricately as you examine it further, in the thought and process that went into this triumph of function.
Much of what we describe as beauty is no more than skin deep - a veneer of curves and shine, under which lurks incredible ugliness in both function and intent.
> I look at a well-executed brutalist structure and get a shiver down my spine
Well, yes, well-executed things tend to imbue some value or ideal. The vast majority of humans are exposed to extremely poor brutalism that is simply oppressive.
I don't like the truck, but I strongly disagree with the idea that no brutalist building can be beautiful. The library at UC San Diego is one prime example.
Brutalist buildings are also way more practical than say Victorian ones. Same goes for this car - it won’t win the beauty contest but should hopefully be a lot more practical for those living in rural areas
Brutalist buildings don’t work. Smaller objects may work.
Source: I worked in a brutalist building for several years. It literally stood in as a prison in movies: terrible every day environment.
The truck is such a slap in the face to the standard car aesthetic. It’s jarring because it feels different and causes dissonance with what I know cars are allowed to look like. Some people will hate it purely because of that knee jerk reaction.
I’m not sure I like the look but I really like how iconoclastic it is.
Brutalism has as much to do with using unadorned, primitive materials as it has to do with actual concrete. It's clearly inspired by expressionism, and I think the expressionists have found their car here.
Also volume and scale. Brutalism is about ignoring the human scale and treating us as livestock. Brutalist forms make you feel like a flower in a crack in the sidewalk.
come on. look at the front bumper's angles. It could be more symmetrical even with a boxy look. They intentionally made it ugly. And not in some "retro" kind or "artistic" kind of angled look - it s not reminiscent of a style. It will almost look better crashed.
it's definitely not what is considered futurist today. It's not only ugly, but doesnt even fit well in a retro futurism classification. i know that there's no accounting for taste, but this is a uniquely ugly car, and not in an innovative way.
I do not feel this will appeal to people who buy a truck for frequent towing. 300 mile range unloaded = 150 mile range under load. With a camper in tow, you'll be stopping every 100-120 miles to recharge. How exactly will you recharge with a 30 foot trailer attached?
This will appeal to businesses that need to broadcast their eco sensibilities to us.
It looks like you can drive it into a lake and then it turns into a submarine. I bet he's gonna unlock that feature a few months after people bought it, and why the windows are "unbreakable"?
Go back and look at the lines and proportions of the countach[0] and look again at the cybertruck. It reminds me of a lambo in the same way that the phantom menace reminds me of a new hope.
I generally appreciate non curvy designs in many forms. But I agree with you on this, my immediate thought was, "God, this thing is absolutely hideous" Such a missed opportunity.
Someone on Reddit made a good point. They might be copying Sonic the movie's approach to marketing. Release a ugly version now, and then later on, release an improved version.
Trying to explain simple bad decision making with some kind of grand marketing strategy that involves incredible amounts of wasted work and huge amounts of coordination and the silence of hundreds of people is the most reddit thing ever.
I though the lesson Tesla learned/taught was that people wanted an electric car that doesn't look like an electric car. Truck buyers' sensibilities are even more conservative than luxury sedan buyers'--aluminum frame? I dunno about that.
Even if you don't like it you have to applaud the vision here. The vast majority of car companies are too afraid of getting out of the conformist design taste of the majority of people.
I grew up with GMC and Ford trucks in the mountains and in Texas (Texans love their trucks), and am in need of a truck (for towing, of which this has amazing specs with the mid and high end models) at the moment. I've been looking and looking not wanting to get taken advantage of, and had mostly settled on a few years old Tundra... but I love this thing, and also love the ATV, and so I am seriously considering this as my next vehicle purchase.
As a very security and privacy conscious person, my main quibble has been that I don't like drive by wire products. I don't want to get Michael Hastings'ed... but the fact is even the big truck companies are starting to get rid of mechanical throttle, so I might as well give up on that is how it feels.
What better way to merge my mountain man and hacker sides than with a Tesla truck. Now if I only had the money laying around... and I do think many of you underestimate how much in truck culture having something that looks different can be the biggest part of being "cool". I got more compliments on my Suzuki Samurai with a lift and 36ers than you would ever imagine. I blacked out a 91 YJ and also got nothing but compliments. This thing is going to do well, mark my words.
I prob won't go get a cord of wood in it, (I might) but that's what the old 84 beat up GMC camper special is for.
I understand what Tesla is doing here. Outer shell manufacturing cost is very low. No paint, minimal bending process. Just laser cut the material and it is ready to be mounted. If you want to manufacture something in a low resource environment ( like Mars ) it might be the clever move.
Yes. I suspect that production line will be designed to be built on Mars. Design of the car also looks like it is built for high dust environments (non-flat rooftop). Solar charging, shell with same material with Starship also supports this thesis.
I bet one of the key factors for this thing to be on the road safely was the development of some kind of unbreakable glass for the huge front window, so they "had to" make this new type of resistant glass. Some "yes man" at the upper management level must've decided to skip constrained material testing (Glass dissipates energy much differently when it is in a frame rather than just loose... pay close attention at the ball drop demo and you'll see the glass jump a few inches)
Better utility than a truck? Excuse me? 6.5' bed and you can't even reach over the sides to get stuff. No stake pockets or any apparent affordance for installation of racks in the bed either. However, I am a fan of a factory tonneau cover and what looks like a built-in ramp in the tailgate.
But there's no avoiding that the thing is just ugly as can be.
Frankly I'm just waiting for an all-electric replacement for the bigger Tacoma / smaller F150 niche. I don't want or need an 80s stainless steel wedge that can tow a 747. Rivian doesn't appear to be interested in that segment. Toyota isn't going to do it until 2025 at best. I was hoping Tesla might, but I'm not surprised that their first foray barely qualifies as a truck.
It's more powerful than a truck, better for the environment, has the capability of running tools without a generator, and is actually appealing to non-truck people -- you're right, it barely qualifies as a truck. And that's a good thing -- we need FAR less trucks in the world.
Not withstanding the grandeur of the truck, its unique look, and specs; I love Elon's composure following the somewhat failed glass test that broke both windows on the vehicle during the live unveiling.
That's a truck only if you consider a Subaru Baja a truck. If you want a real crack at the F-150's market share, it has to be usable for work. If you can't put a stack of plywood or drywall in the back and still have room for tools and a ladder, it's useless as a work truck. Will this thing even accept a ladder rack? Has a single person on the design team ever spent a single day working a blue collar job that requires a truck?
I don't know about the car market in the US enough but Tesla seems to be in the premium segment - are the trucks people buy for this kind of work in the price range of this thing ?
100% absolutely. See [1]. People spend an absolutely stupid amount on trucks - basically no one gets the base model and the average sale price for an F150 is north of $45k. It's one of the reasons Ford is focusing on the truck segment - the margins are way higher than for mass market sedans.
Yes, people foolishly gravitate toward trucks and SUVs, fattening the wallets of the car manufacturers and fueling the insanely stupid 7 year auto loan industry [1]. Of course, this is also disastrous for mitigating carbon emissions [2]. Additionally, they are a menace on the roadway through increasing pedestrian accidents and death [3] and likely increasing cyclist deaths [4]. They should be much more heavily regulated, for commercial use only, and require special licensing requiring regular accident avoidance training/testing.
ye, Elon was sweating like crazy right after the blunder. I also thought the presentation could have been rehearsed a little bit better as the slides seem to be off most of the time (I assume Elon is just way too busy to rehearse these things).
This is how every Tesla presentation goes. It's never been about Steve Jobs level presentation polish, it's always been about the quality of the product.
The glass was extremely impressive. You obviously saw the height drop tests demonstrating the Tesla glass as vastly superior to traditional auto glass.
It's definitely not his job to rehearse slides. Who would define that as part of his job for him exactly? The board?
As a CEO that is particularly overly in control, ultimately he'll decide how to present, when to present, what to present. It's a take it or leave it package, Musk is a very abnormal executive. He'll rehearse slides if he feels like it, that's clearly more like his personality.
I'm pretty sure Elon doesn't rehearse these presentations at all. He's had trivially-correctable wrong info on slides before, and had to explain it away during the presentation.
Hahaha... probably. I think it actually made the thing look a lot more bad-ass while he gave the rest of the presentation. I own a Tacoma (and have owned a few) and I've had my truck broken into quite often. Some places you don't even want to park because they're hot spots for getting your windows broken into (I'm looking at you Lombard Street). This will be a bit of a deterrent to thieves which is nice.
During the demo of transparent metal glass Elon invited Franz to hit the glass with metal ball and it broke. It wasn’t supposed to because it is extra hardened or something.
I’m surprised to see the positive comments about the design.. I saw this and the first thing I thought was: that’s the ugliest vehicle I’ve ever seen. No exaggeration.
She called him her "creator". Just an actress (Grimes) on video with weird almost-flailing gestures or was it an animated AI from a secret Elon project made in the likeness of Grimes?
Though the delivery could have been better, to me it feels like a "Welcome to Thunderdome" at https://youtu.be/0y3wE0pgXcM?t=201 where Elon is just living out his Mad Max dream. Love it.
I'm worried about being on the road with these. If they are as indestructable as suggested/demonstrated, it seems like everyone else on the road becomes the crumple zone for both vehicles. Perhaps the anti-dent is different from crumple zone considerations, but definitely a bit intimidating to share the road with.
I'm guessing the crumple zone on this is going to be better than a vehicle with an internal combustion engine! That and the fact that semis are everywhere. This being on the road doesn't worry me in the slightest given the other vehicles already out there.
So, from the comments here and elsewhere, it's a Marmite thing. A majority seem to hate the design but a significant minority absolutely loves it.
That doesn't look bad for sales. I'd rather have a group of enthusiasts that love the product, and a group of haters, than have everyone going "meh". Firstly because many of the enthusiasts will probably buy the product, and secondly because controversy is free advertising.
Personally I do like the aesthetics, although I'm not in the demographic that buys trucks.
The price point is incredibly low for the capacity and performance. Go price a high-end Ram/F-series/Chevy and be amazed that you can easily spend 65K on something you'd feel comfortable taking a date to dinner in. I was shocked by the first look, but the practicality is there. I'd buy one, if I wasn't in the "post-payoff" period of my SUV. If the incentives are there and fuel costs rise, I think I could convince my spouse.
The tall, angled side fins above the bed are a dealbreaker for me. Makes it too hard to reach in, also more awkward to climb into from the side by standing on a tire. It sucks that you wouldn't be able to rest anything horizontally on them without having it slide off. I'm curious as to how well it'll hold a rack: https://www.autoaccessoriesgarage.com/Truck-Racks-Van-Racks/.... I wonder if this will be another form > function, like with the Tesla Model X whose gull wing doors make it impossible to hold a roof rack.
This is nearly April fools joke level. Ignoring the individual aesthetic, it just stands in such stark contrast to the rest of the curved, sleek vehicles in their fleet.
Yes, the year must have been of some cyberpunk future, because the look is right from there.
I can't but notice how the "futuristic" car designs from my childhood are now pretty common in mass-produced cars. I suggest the recent sci-fi movie esthetics are going to be common soon enough, and this truck is an example.
Watching this was... cerebral. The impression I get is that Tesla made this truck because they wanted to, and they don't really care too much what people think of it.
Beyond the camper, like the other person said, it won't function for contractors. Drywall and plywood are sold in standardized 4'x8' sheets, which won't fit in the bed of this thing.
Yeah, I’m sure the truck camper companies like Lance are going to jump on this. Hopefully they design something that matches the CyberTruck design and integrates seamlessly.
I've got a truck (an older Tacoma) and too many hobbies that make it hard to give up, so I'll likely always have a truck.
If Tesla had introduced a factory version of Simone's, I'd be screaming at them to shut up and take my money.
This thing...I'm sorry, I can't get over the styling. I love the numbers, and don't even find the pricing to be too horrible, but there's no away I'll have something that looks like that. Maybe Tesla truck 2.0 will be worth looking at.
The branding and aesthetic of this truck is so untesla it is alarming. Trucks are very expensive nowadays so this could be good market for them. Especially if people buy them for the novelty. As far as actual work is concerned I feel that this will be roughed up very badly in no time, and being a unibody of sorts will present some problems and expense to repair. It’s pretty much the opposite of what you would want from a pure work standpoint. Something that is built more like an overgrown UTV would be better for Real work.
* Its capacity of 7,500+ lbs isn't too shabby. Not F150/1500 class. But Jeep Gladiator territory, which is another much-awaited domestic truck getting some attention.
* I'm assuming the 250+ mile range drops significantly when towing.
* When camped at sites serviced by electricity, it's often 30/50 amp service and unmetered. Good for recharging!
I'm unlikely to jump on board yet, but this is a beautiful experiment and there will be many trucking niche users watching!
Please don't be that EV owner that mooches off of "free" sockets. Or at least ask first. RV parks aren't expecting people to use $5-10 of electricity overnight, and they'll get upset at EV owners.
Just get the 200kwH model (my est for the 500 mi range), plug the RV into the truck, and go boondocking for a week with A/C, fridge, induction cooker, and no propane. Extra bonus if the truck supports charging from the 2kW array on the roof of the RV.
Maybe this is controversial, but I really like the aesthetic. It definitely has a futuristic, industrial cyberpunk vibe. I wouldn't call it "pretty", but it's distinctive.
This is the first mainstream security truck at an affordable price. The sales on this are going to be higher than anybody expects. Every rapper, drug dealer, and dirtbag politician that doesn't want to go out like Tupac will buy one. The weekend warriors who had to give up their Hummers will buy one. The Mexican/Colombian cartels will all drive them because it's already bullet resistant but with that power, it can easily be modded with an extra 1/4 inch plate. The regular folks who live in places where carjacking is common (Brazil, Venezuela, South Africa, etc.) will buy them. It's going to sell very, very well.
I wonder what it will look like when it is actually produced, doubt it passes US standards in it's current form. Needs some mirrors at the very least, although maybe at the time of release cameras will be a legal replacement.
Not sure why I would buy a Model Y. I love this thing. It feels safer, carries 6 people and is a full utility. And all of that with gorgeously edgy styling. Can we please move this up before the Model Y Tesla?
That thing looks like it would do a lot of damage if it hit a pedestrian. Aren't there regulations that are supposed to enforce designs that increase the survival chances of people hit by cars?
Quote from the website "You will be able to complete your configuration as production nears in late 2021. Tri Motor AWD production is expected to begin in late 2022."
Ya right, production starts in 2 years. I would guess 4 yrs and I know nothing about car production. But I do know that just getting the subcontractors in order will take more than a year even if you have an assembly line in place already. Why is Tesla so optimistic about timelines? It just hurts it's reputation when they are years late.
I'm not the one who would buy this as I live in Boston and drive a tiny car. But I thought it was really cool. Reminds me of futuristic cars from 80's action movies.
Is it a good idea to make it so shiny? Coupled with the slab sides, you get quite strong reflections. Could be annoying at best to other drivers and potentially dangerous.
I was looking for an electric truck to buy and was hoping this Cybertruck would be a replacement, but I think I’ll stick with my gas sipping sedan for awhile longer after seeing this announcement.
I’ll wait for the next iterations or a better alternative offered by the competition. I just can’t see myself driving this “box.” Reminds me of those early 90s SUVs, but like 10x uglier.
Specs are impressive but I just can’t get over the aesthetics.
I love the new look and am curious about if the exoskeleton has crumple points to reduce the kinetic energy imparted to the passengers during a collision.
Yeah by the way which is the biggest news, the truck or the ATV?
Or both?
Personnally I would by wildy interested by the Tesla ATV and less by the truck
Personally I like cars with rough edges like this. But there's a reason no one except for Lamborghini is building low-polygon cars: It's pretty inefficient aerodynamically.
But this looks like just an early concept. Those always look much more spectacular than the final, real-world version where physics and laws need to be respected. We can probably expect it to end up looking a bit more round and less exciting.
I think this product, tesla cybertruck, is a good display of "function is form". Usually people preface "function over form" or "form over function". But in this case, the functionality of this truck solves the reason to have a truck REALLY WELL.
The form of the truck comes from being a very practical, efficient use of a truck.
Form has been getting seeping into "aesthetics", which is good and all, but is that really where it should go? Sure, it's nice to look at something pretty, but why not have some cases where form fits the functionality perfectly.
I think this is a good implementation of mending the two practices into one harmonious product where function and form balances each other out.
Function: strong outer body, powerful, and everything serves a purpose.
Form: tesla's well-known low-drag design, probs makes manufacturing simpler (not easier per say, but simpler), etc.
I can't think of all the reasonings of functions and forms, but I just think this cybertruck would be super useful to have in particular blue-collar jobs.
I feel like we're going through a similar phase as the 50's where all American cars had huge flarings that had no purpose, but they had aesthetic value. This thing is too much style for the sake of style. In some ways, it is cool - use aesthetics to market to masses, change the world - one gas guzzler at a time.
I'm reminded of top gear's Geoff [1]. It's that concept car angularity that makes you believe that it could be manufactured in a shed, if only it had a frame.
I think the main point here is that electric cars (being simpler and having few parts) also cater to extremely versatile designs. I wonder how far they could gog away from the classic truck design within allowed regulations (like, a shorter front, different positioning etc). Clearly aesthetics are not a concert here.
The design might be intentional. Knowing that they would not be able to fulfill all orders of a beautiful Cybertruck, this might be a smart move. Reduces number of potential orders, proves a EV pick-up truck point, and sets an extreme price baseline, which for other manufacturers could be very hard to reach.
I suspect that over the next 6 months to a year, everyone will want this truck. They think it is awful right now. They are shocked. This will change. People are going to start asking the automotive industry for the future. I was disgusted yesterday. I'm interested in this vehicle today.
You don't even need that. Mars' atmosphere is very thin. Windspeeds can be extreme but there is so little mass being moved that the generated forces are pretty minimal.
The unpainted steel of the DeLorean made it a pain in the ass to repair. You can't pull dents, apply body filler and repaint, you basically need a whole new panel if you want to restore damage.
The part of the demo that was actually impressive was the part where they took sledgehammers to the body panels and didn't leave dents. I think it'll be fine.
It looks like it was designed by a guy who makes rockets — and it was. I admire the chutzpah to make something that looks so different than what is selling, but it seems like the kind of "futuristic" that would be made from cardboard in a sixth-grade "back to the Future" theater performance. It's easy to see what's cool about it, but it's somehow very immature.
Though I admit the longer I've looked at it, the more neutral I feel about it, but maybe that's just a personality defect.
Elon said in advance he doesn't care if people don't like how it looks, so clearly he anticipated some negative feedback about the look. I can see it in a lot of scenarios, but just not in my driveway.
Entirely flat metal panels tend to be rather disappointing mechanically... Tap on them and they'll sound like a drum... I forsee major issues with noise from the body panels fluttering in the wind at high speeds, or just being noisy as rain hits it.
I am so excited by the Cybertruck. I drive a Toyota minivan now and my lease is up in the fall of 2021 so the timing is perfect. To me this is the perfect minivan alternative and my husband is thrilled with the hauling capacity, plus the specs. Fun to drive, big range and looks cool (but I could not care less what it looks like since I drive a minivan now!)and the price is the real hook. No gas needed six seater electric truck that drives like a Porsche? Sold. So you can get the truck market but also the minivan market. That’s huge. And my family skis and snowboards so it’s perfect for going to the mountains. Total all purpose vehicle for an active family. What is not to love?
I absolutely love this truck's design. I really wonder (and worth noting because no one else has yet) how much the aerodynamics played into the aesthetics. The coefficient of drag on this thing is probably great because of the truck's profile. The trailing edge comes to a point to reduce vortices / separation of flow (and thus drag), which would have a significant impact on range. I find it funny because the profile is very similar to that of an older Prius, which actually had excellent aerodynamics compared to any other car at the time. Obviously this thing would eat a Prius for a snack, and I wouldn't be surprised if cybertruck has a better Cd.
I've been waiting for this announcement so I could decide on the next truck I buy. In terms of specs, it's pretty good. In terms looks, it's terrible. I was hoping Tesla would put out a vehicle to be top of the list, they failed.
From the side, the pickup initially looks downright weird. But I think in three dimensions, it looks astonishing and brilliant. But the thing that really gets me is the 3+3 seating. We've got two sets of twins, and I drive one of the very few cars on the road with 3+3 seating, a Fiat Multipla. It just works for big families. To some it's the ugliest car on the road, but to me that car goes all the way around to beautiful, and no one denies its practicality. Whenever I see another one we almost always wave to each other. Hey, beauty is all in the beholder, and the Tesla looks great. I'd love an estate/Station wagon even more.
Regardless of its power, that is the ugliest car design I’ve ever seen. Seeing it in the stage in video after the renders on the website made it even worse. Nerds may think it’s cool, but I doubt you’ll catch many people riding around in it.
From a distance you can sort of see what the were going for, but looking at it up close it's dumb ugly. I imagine they thought they were being clever and minimal with the straight lines and utter lack of subtlety, but the result is just clunky and inept. It's like a child's crude drawing, and the fact that adults actually made this is absurd. It reminds me of TARS from Interstellar, which is another design people inexplicably praised.
I probably hate this even more for the fact that I adore the angular Fiero/Lambo/DeLorean/Blade Runner aesthetic. This is such a poorly botched, cluelessly literal interpretation of that.
I'm not a car or truck person.. so forgive the ignorance.. but is it rear wheel only? The `Drivetrain: REAR-WHEEL DRIVE` section has me perplexed for a number of reasons.
1. I thought Teslas where all wheel? Ie, the nature of how they work is such that each wheel was a motor. Is that not the case for this one?
2. Isn't all-wheel a valuable offering? This doesn't seem to be an off-road focused vehicle.. but nevertheless I personally value all wheel. Am I wrong in this?
I find this weird. I can't afford it anyway, BUT, I have often joked that I need a small Tesla truck to replace my Prius. However, strangely nothing about this interests me. Even if I had the money.
That roof will not work very well in areas with snow. You're going to spend an hour cleaning off the snow and ice. In my region a hefty fine is in store for anyone who does not clear snow and ice from their vehicle roof.
Why do you say that? With the slope and adjustable suspension I'd think it'd be easier-- you just lower the truck and brush the snow down in a few swoops.
Snow sticks it's not always like magic light fluffy movie snow. And ice can seem like it's been welded on. Plus it looks like a very long reach to get to it.
I drive a Dodge 2500 4x4 and my roof is 1/3 the size of that beast. And it's 6'6" high which makes it awkward to be able to remove ice. If ice flies off and hits another vehicle while I am driving I am in big trouble, and rightly so.
Form over factor = endearingly ugly. I can see the narrative for a simple aerodynamic wedge eventually changing public sentiment. Basically the modernist argument against decoration. If this actually ends up being a solid workhorse, the same energy efficiency and fragile masculinity arguments that shamed humvee owners might also work against frou-frou status symbol pickup trucks. That said the bedrail is high AF so I don't even know if this design is practical. I assume there's some sort hood and winch int he front, and mounts for lights / accessories that would ruin the profile.
I wonder how a design like this stacks up when taking pedestrian safety into consideration. Of course, with self driving safety features you could argue it should never hit a pedestrian.
The video link stopped working halfway through for me, but that design isn't final, right? Looks like an early prototype for integration testing- that angular look can't be what it'll actually ship like?
Most people who have trucks rarely use them for things a car or suv couldn't do. I think the range limitations when towing and other limitations probably won't hurt sales because people who have to do serious long distance towing wouldnt consider a tesla anyway. The cybertruck will be used as a big car by most people most of the time. As long as it is able to maintain the aspirational marketing properties of other trucks it should do well in the US. Plus it has the chicken tax on its side.
... and I'm just sitting here wondering if the rims really are not round (as it's interlock the tire design seems to indeed indicate), and why on earth one would do that?
I'm not up to speed with US regulations, but the design seems very dangerous for pedestrian collisions. A sharp and hard shell must be very harmful, even at low speeds.
Ugliness aside, I wonder if the onboard electrical outlets will allow it to be used as emergency power for a fridge / sump pump in case of a power outage.
This seems to be the electric version of the hummer. Not a practical replacement to actual pickup trucks, but a lot of coolness factor for people who want it.
Ya'll joke, but I don't suspect they are going to make/sell a lot of these and if Tesla goes under in the near future these things will skyrocket in value.
If you really want to bet against Tesla, buy one of these and wait for Tesla to fold. No one will ever make anything like this again.
I could even imagine them only making a few hundred of these and them all being worth a million dollars after the company collapses.
I don't think this is a legit new model by Tesla. Do you really think they wouldn't have properly tested their "shatter-proof" windows before a global unveil? And fail twice?
This is a really well orchestrated publicity stunt designed to boost the stock price. They calculated that even the failed shatter proof windows wouldn't matter much in public opinion because the car itself is so ugly.
Is it just me who is a bit wary of the sports car claims?
Acceleration is going to be impressive and CoG will be lower than for similar vehicles but likely much higher than say for a BMW M2 or similar sporty car, so cornering isn't likely to be anywhere near as good which coupled with the extra weight, it seems that this will be good for a pick up truck but no competition for a car in a circuit.
Given how homogenous the last 20 years of automotive design has been I'm really impressed by Tesla's willingness to do something so radically different.
Jobs understood the power of great design: Conceiving a product that people don't know they want until you show them. Not normally a big fan of Musk or Tesla, but this feels like one of those products. It feels like the future.
It will be interesting to see just how useful the bed is. Angled sides are usually a non-starter for a work truck. Also, if this is supposed to be a bug-out vehicle, how do you charge it when it’s bugged-out?
Anyway, the design is certainly getting people talking. We’ll have to wait and see if Ford and Chevy have any response to this in terms of how their design language changes.
Even worse the first trials against the conventional door were partly sideways, where the dead blow hammer just functions like a regular hammer or worse depending on area size of impact with P=F/A.
The renders on their site are exceptionally bad. They don't even look quite like renders, rather hand-made sketches with textures applied on top. The design of the truck is not that bad and I bet the car would look fantastic in real life and on real photos, with all the minor detail, reflections and the feel of the real material, that is now missing.
So weird that people take the design here personally. This thing looks FUN. It seems just as ridiculous looking as an F-350 to me, and more practical than a Hummer.
This is what I imagine a luxury vehicle looking like post zombie apocalypse. Most of the world falls apart, but the 1% create disconnected suburban paradises and this is what you drive to get between them.
Something I haven't seen mentioned much is that this is going to be one of the only cars on the market that you can fix the exterior on with plate-steel and a welder. In terms of apocalyptic vehicles, this is amazing. Also, in terms of me fucking hating curvy bullshit that nobody can work on without special tools... I really like it.
This design is just strange. When the Model S was introduced, Tesla specifically stated that it was designed to look like high-end luxury/sports cars instead of following the funky/future design that hybrids always had until.
Interesting that they reversed it with this truck, and I wonder how it'll affect the market of potential truck buyers.
I kind of love it. Seems to hit the mark on price, range, capability, size.
Would personally only want a van version, or possibly just the ability to take out the second seats and barrier. Would be great then for urban travel and camping.
Also would love to learn more about the engineering trade-offs in their exoskeleton structure over traditional frame on body designs.
Ever since that cement bridge collapsed at Florida International University a few months ago on top of cars, I've been wondering if any type of car could withstand the force of such a scenario.
Anyone know if this truck could withstand the scenario? Hopefully someone smart with the Physics or Engineering can help me out with an answer.
Anyone knows how the laser lighting works on stage. The effect looks like the light beam has a start/end and can move, similar to a lightsaber. e.g. around -44minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZbVixSkgu0
Does anyone else see a problem in giving virtually indestructible (or at least much more so than any other car) in the hands of typical "truck driver" or is it just me ? I can just picture a dumbass in this truck on the highway not giving two shits about other cars around him. I dont like this picture.
It certainly doesn't fit in with current car aesthetics that try to mimic something like a bulging piece of muscle with a face. It's like straight out of the future we were hoping for in the 80's, where machines were cold, hard steel and not mushy plastic. Has Arnold Schwarzenegger preordered one?
Reminds me of an old game I used to play where you drove around a blocky vehicle with a similar shape. Now I can't stop trying to think of the name of it.
EDIT: Was the link changed right after posting? Everyone's talking about a failed glass demo with Elon and all I'm seeing is photos of an odd looking truck.
This looks extremely dangerous. It looks like it could mow down a whole
sidewalk full of people if the driver made a wrong turn.
So I guess this one won't be marketed for its safety and its ability reduce
traffic deaths, like the Teslas with Autopilot. Or will this also have
Autopilot? That sounds even worse somehow.
Cybertruck is built with an exterior shell made for ultimate durability and passenger protection. Starting with a nearly impenetrable exoskeleton, every component is designed for superior strength and endurance, from Ultra-Hard 30X Cold-Rolled stainless-steel structural skin to Tesla armor glass.
I appreciate the vaporwave aesthetic. I like that it was given space to be designed by someone passionate and not a design by committee - appeal to the masses blob. Unfortunately what they came up with is crap. I'm worried this will kill off any further vaporwave designs because it is so bad.
In fashion nothing is new and everything is born again. I love this..
Elon prefaced it best by stating the inspiration was early 007. How amazing a large-scale mfg can do such a thing. How dare Ford, Cadillac, etc waver from their aesthetic. It's possible for Elon and he does it.
Just emphasizing the fact that the top end has a 0-60 in sub seconds is INSANE. My model 3 is just a base model and is crazy quick, this is 40% faster than that! Imagine being in a 2019 Porsche and get smoked off the line by this giant industrial crazy hunk of metal.
This announcement eclipsed the previously-announced Bollinger Motors products (https://bollingermotors.com/). These were intriguing but the price ($125k) is a bit eye popping.
It’s kind of cool and I like that it looks very different. But do we really need more super heavy, huge and expensive vehicles on the road? It would be much better if they put their efforts into something small, efficient and affordable and made that cool.
Does a general public really needs bulletproof cars with unbreakable windows? What if there's a traffic accident and passengers are caught inside, how do you get them out? (assuming you don't have a handy metal ball laying around somewhere :P)
Put a new ski-doo in the back and that’s a sick rig! After living through so many rusted out car bodies I was in to the aluminum f150s but stainless steel is even better. No paint to worry about scratching up on narrow deactivates logging roads.
I find this looks goofy, but other than the lack of physical buttons inside, this is a dream vehicle for me. Most weekends I want to drive 4 people + 4 mountain bikes a 120 mile round trip including fast highway and rough mountain roads.
I quite like the Paul Verhoeven '80s angular action movie aesthetic in general, but this just looks bad. The proportions are all off. I thought it was a joke and they were going to bring out the actual truck at some point.
so assuming Elon launchs one of these into space heading for mars in the near future, will this thing drive on mars? Does the air pressurization system, super rugged shell, and ATV make this thing ideal for life as a martian?
The overall feeling of this truck's design transports me back to when I was a small boy dreaming up my ideal adventure vehicle and drawing it out in my school notebooks.
It makes me want one just to satisfy my inner child. :)
Two things just occurred to me:
1) The built in air compressor is so it can maintain cabin pressure in space.
2) The shape might have some optimum cylindrical packing arrangement for starship's cargo bay.
Curious why there isn't a Founders Series on this car -- full prepayment (on a loaded config) for first-in-line position, which helps them with cashflow (a major issue for Tesls).
Everyone thought this thing was a joke and waiting for the real truck reveal esp after all the laughing and smashing of the windows. Next day all of us wants one.
It’s the frikkin Batmobile! I want one. I will never actually buy one because a) $$$ and b) I live in a city with small roads. But it looks awesome. No
their demo of it reminded me of some of Apple's product demos when things didn't "just work" like Apple likes to brag that they do. Steve Jobs actually made them funny to watch. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-50513294
It is amazing how weird and poorly produced these things are. The cheesy outfits, the terrible lighting, the window demo failure. Its like they go out of their way to cut corners and look unprofessional to strike some kind of authenticity note. Like, obviously they're not faking the demo, or the windows wouldn't have broken. And the mumbling fumble/botched-transition to the ATV...
VH1 interns could produce a better event than this.
Given Tesla has axed their capex to almost nothing due to their liquidity crunch it is highly unlikely this ever gets built. Same with the semi truck.
These “Product” unveils are designed to pull in cash deposits to fund current expenses and massive cash incineration, not future development.
This will likely never be built and if you are thinking of giving Tesla a deposit for anything they currently are not producing I implore you to look at Tesla’s balance sheet.
I get wanting something that looks different, but difference just for difference's sake is no virtue.
I think if I had to render the term "alt-right" in vehicular form, it would look something like this. It seems to me an disturbingly accurate reflection of our polarized times.
So you're saying it's "too alt-right", right? Isn't the alt-right also the group that doesn't believe in climate change? So they'd never adopt an electric vehicle based on its virtue of being electric. What if the vehicle is made specifically to appeal to them, though, and just happens to also be electric?
I don't know whether your premise is correct or not, but if it is, this might be genius.
> "alt-right" in vehicular form, it would look something like this
Strange, I thought the alt-right meme was that brutalist design was a Marxist demoralisation psy-op; surely an alt-right design would be more akin to the Beetle (as partly conceptualised by Hitler).
I'm thinking they go more Futurist than Socialist. And if they did fall for a style they previously claimed to despise, well, it wouldn't be the first time they were caught in a contradiction.
That being said, as this truck is not made out of concrete, I'm not sure the brutalist label applies. ;-)
the car would look 70% better if they remove a triangle of steel between the bowl and the end of the roof. i think i am warming up to the design after seeing more pics in better lighting.
All of the aesthetic stuff aside, the high sides next to the bed make it completely useless as an actual pickup truck. This is what it looks like when a bunch of people who have never done manual labor in their lives designs a truck.
As a pickup it looks worthless, as a futuristic military transport that checks off a bunch of my childhood fantasies I wish I could afford one but at more than a year's gross income... sigh.
I laughed at the Model Y unveil, but looking at this I am experiencing "Sam Neill 'In the Mouth of Madness' " paroxysms of laughter. What an ugly hunk of garbage.
I don’t even need a truck, I am driving a Prius Prime (32 miles battery + gas tank) today and I want to buy this.
The look, the specs, the design of the website, I love it all!
The edges are way too sharp for EU regulations I guess. Don’t think this model will be allowed in the EU. Sharp edges like these do more harm on collision.
You can also add that to this type of audience which pretty much sums up what the technical bias of a typical HN reader/commenter really is.
So far it is more like all things:
Linux, Rust, AMD, ThinkPads, Elon Musk, Rick and Morty, Stanford, MIT, Web-Tech, Stripe Design, Mr Robot, Space Travel, Kubernetes, Data Structures and Algorithms, and now Telsa.
Lots of interesting comments and perspectives in this thread, from the judgmental "trucks are stupid" group (typically outside the US) to "this thing is ugly" reactionaries and everything in between. This is what I love (and hate) about HN. Yet, if you stop and use it as stimulus for though, HN turns out to be a good way to force you to reevaluate your mental models...sometimes.
My first reaction to this truck was along the lines of "this is the very definition of ugly". From there it moved to "well, that was stupid" (the glass). And, slowly, once past the shock, it morphed into "it seems to have lots of practical features". Now I want to see one in person and explore it a bit.
A few random thoughts:
We are in the market to purchase two vehicles within the next, say, 12 months, with one of them likely in the next four months or less. We thought we would go electric...until the fires here in California caused us to rethink things.
Simple issue: The infrastructure for conventional vehicles is ubiquitous. You don't even have to think about the availability of energy at all. Simple example, yesterday one of our cars was down to 7 miles of range left in the fuel tank. This wasn't a big deal at all. There are easily twenty gas stations within that driving distance, if not more. And topping-off takes ten minutes or less total time.
From my perspective, and some might disagree, at the current time the weakest point of any electric vehicle, Tesla or otherwise, is the --and I think I can use this word-- fact that they cannot be relied upon during emergencies. The infrastructure isn't mature and ubiquitous enough to match the degree of reliance one can place on IC vehicles. If your life and that of your family depends on being able to travel, electric vehicles are a bad idea.
Because of this we went from really wanting to transition in to electrics (we even installed a 13 kW solar system in preparation for this transition) to now thinking timing isn't quite right.
A brief comment for those disparaging the "American obsession with large vehicles". I'll just say you likely lack context. I don't own a truck, I've always been as sports car guy. I've probably owned more sports cars than anything else. However, most (all) US cities are very different from European cities. There are no problems with the size of roads, all the way down to business districts and neighborhoods. I've traveled all over Europe and other parts of the world. And, yes, in a lot of the cities and towns I have visited US-style SUV's and trucks would make no sense whatsoever.
Don't think Americans are ignorant or less sophisticated because they are buying SUV's and trucks. If they were not practical there wouldn't be a market for them. It's the same for what we call minivans --not sure if the same term is used in Europe. We have a Toyota Sienna with 220,000 miles on it. We bought it new. It is incredibly practical in the context of family life, home renovations, dealing with our three German Shepherd dogs, going to the lake, going camping, loading it up with friends and family for travel. Form follows function AND needs, and in the US trucks and SUV --large and small-- exist because they are practical, useful and deliver value.
Sure, it is disconcerting to see just one person effectively commuting in a truck. The perspective here is that not everyone is a software engineer, most people have limited financial resources and they can't buy both an efficient small "green-er" vehicle and the truck or SUV they need for family and home use. So, again, they make a choice based on form, function and needs, and if a truck, minivan or SUV make sense, well, that's what they buy, and that's what they drive every day.
Back to Tesla...
One possible perspective on this is that of what I am generally going to put under the umbrella of fiduciary responsibility.
One could rightly argue that coming out with something like this is a breach of that responsibility to investors. Tesla has excellent technology and could become a massive company. The truck market can support millions of units per year in sales just in the US (about 2.5 to 3 million per year). This radical design is, from that perspective, irresponsible. It will capture a very, very small percentage of the 250,000+ trucks per month sold on average in the US. It's a shocker, like the Hummer, but it isn't going to make a dent on overall truck sales. If anything it might signal that Elon isn't interested in growing Tesla beyond a certain level.
These are not decisions you make if you want to beat the other guys at their own game (or even redefine the game). In an industry where historical P/E ratios are in the 10 to 15 range, Tesla will eventually have to face that hard cold reality. Sure, today investors ignore this but, at the end of the day, when everyone is making electric cars and batteries, Tesla might not be able to escape the fact that it will be just another car company. In that context, I think this truck might be an irresponsible waste of an important competitive advantage.
Two of the worst things you can waste in life are time and trust. This offering is guaranteed to waste a ton of time. Years. And trust also. Anyone who wants a "real" or, let's just say "traditional" truck is going to ignore Tesla and assume they are just crazy. There are 250,000 people making a decision to buy a truck EVERY MONTH, and the VAST majority of them are going to laugh at Tesla and move on. It will be year, maybe even a decade, before anyone looks at Tesla as a serious truck company. So, yeah, time and trust wasted, unnecessarily.
I need to see this Tesla thing (that would have been a good name "Thing") but I don't think I am buying one. Next iteration, perhaps.
So my hypothesis is the people who buy stupidly oversized pickup trucks (which generally speaking aren't going to be the people on this site btw) are either crazy gun people, trailer _____, or people who seriously are trying to prove something. For all of these people it's about making a very large very visible and very obnoxious over the top statement. Really can't see how any of that demographic either wants anything "cyber" (although again this site is the wrong place to be making this argument) or anything that isn't just "in your face over the top MACHO". If you imagine the Cybertruck in wood, it looks like a cheap Pinewood derby car. The design looks like something a 3rd grader came up with. It should be redesigned to: a) have an obnoxiously loud (yet completely unnecessary) ENGINE sound; b) have an incredibly obnoxious front grill that emphasizes absolute dominance; c) a bed in the back that's open to the elements (because no one carries stuff there anyway, and being open to the elements is tough); d) be about 3x the size. Nobody wants a pinewood derby car masquerading as a truck imho. I think this will be a huge flop.
This is what happens when an Aztec mates with a Delorean. This is the biggest boondoggle, maybe ever. The Reliant Robin has more charisma than this thing.
A lot of people are talking about how it looks awesome. I guess they've done their market research to target the audience that wants this. It's looks like 1980s sci-fi threw up and I think it looks terrible for appealing to most of the general population.
They'll probably make their money off of it (with tax subsidies, which is still keeping most of Musk's enterprises afloat .. so we're all paying for it, sadly), but it's because they target the demographic clearly represented in a lot of these comments.
Personally, I think the design looks awful and terrible. I don't even really like the current Tesla with their terrible UI, stupid "touch-screen-everything" and lack of tactile buttons. But whatever, I'm sure it will sell.
This is a design abomination and a colossal mistake. Like many, I've been a fan of Tesla from the beginning because of the beautiful and tantalizing design language which was backed up with mind boggling performance. It made you aspire for the vehicle. Why would Tesla mess with that formula? This truck is horrendous, an absolute beast. This looks like a high school science project gone bad. I actually thought the whole thing was a joke and I was waiting for Elon to smash it with the sledge hammer at the end to reveal a prince of a vehicle underneath a frog skin. It never happened and I was speechless. Yes, the features and specs were in keeping with Tesla's awe-inspiring tradition. But, I can't say the same for the design. Elon, we're all human beings and we make mistakes. Please fix and re-do. Your company reputation and survival depend on this. I am utterly shocked and extremely disappointed.
