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Some Tesla engineers secretly started designing a Cybertruck alternative because they ‘hated’ it::“They were like, ‘You can’t be serious.’ They didn’t want to have anything to do with it,” Franz von Holzhausen said, according to Walter Isaacson.
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So both the engineers and everyone in the comments is just saying they hate/like the look of it? That’s the last important part. As I understand it, the Cybertruck is never going to be allowed to the roads in Europe because of how unsafe it is. That’s what people should be interested in. Looks can be pleasing to some and ugly to others and that’s ok.
I’ve been wondering about its crumple zones. So… does it not have any ?
The other car is the crumple zone.
I wonder how much the other car’s crumple zone affects the performance of your own. I wouldn’t be surprised if one car not having one would degrade the performance of the one that does.
In which case, these cars actually become a public safety risk.
The crumple zone absorbs kinetic energy / momentum and allows a smoother and slower deceleration for the passengers as the energy transfer of the impact gets drawn out over time. The suddenness of crashes is what causes the greatest injuries, so you want it to be less sudden.
If both cars have equally performing crumple zones then both zones contribute equally to this “jerk reduction” (a rapid change in acceleration is called jerk), but if only one has it then you only get half as good reduction and the slowdown will be more sudden.
I thought that might be the case but I didn’t want to speak authoritatively.
Yeah this cyber truck is going to make accidents a lot worse.
So the pedestrians are as well?
Airbags
the bodies of children it’s software won’t detect will have plenty of crumple zones, don’t see what’s the issue
the thing is a giant slab of angled metal, when it crashes into things my guess is the hood will slide backwards and “dissect” entire people.
That’s a threat with most vehicles and is easily engineered for. Aside from visibility problems, we can’t know what real safety issues it might have until we get crash test data.
How unsafe is it? I’ve not seen any crash test results.
Afaik they haven’t done any crash testing yet, or haven’t released the results. The EU tends not to allow cars with sharp, angular front ends. Iirc that’s why the latest Camaro can’t be sold in swathes of Europe.
Why are people so convinced that the Cybertruck won’t be safe? Of all the bad things we can say about Tesla, it’s a fact that they’re quite safe vehicles. I see no reason why the company would suddenly build a vehicle that is so unsafe it cannot be sold in Europe. Some comments in this thread say it doesn’t have any crumple zones. How strong do you think 3mm stainless steel is? The strength of every vehicle comes from its frame, not from its body panels. Same thing with the Cybertruck.
Safety isn’t just about the driver though, you also have to think about what happens when they hit pedestrians or other cars. I gotta say, there’s a lot of vehicles I’d much rather be hit by than this if I had a choice
There are also pedestrian safety laws. I’m not convinced that the Cybertruck is less safe than any other similar-sized pickup truck. If anything, the nose is a bit lower, so it’d let a pedestrian fall on the hood more than if they were hit by another truck.
Either way, the stainless steel isn’t going to be a factor, and the pickup market is flooded with vehicles that are less safe for pedestrians than lower cars.
Am I the only person besides Elon who likes the cybertruck? I hate agreeing with that idiot on anything, but I think the cybertruck looks cool.
It looks like a car drawn by a 5 year old.
I’m not even saying that as an insult, that’s literally what it looks like.
My problem with it is that it’s just extremely boring imo
I mean I respect the opinion. I honestly think the design just needs to be workshopped. You could absolutely market a futuristic all metal pickup with bullet proof windows and all the other stupid shit it does. It’s just the design that’s the problem. It’s all Elon, and as we know now Elon is actually dumb as fuck. He’s a guy who mistook his type two bipolar symptoms as ‘flashes of genius’, got lucky in the dot com boom, and is now too rich to be told no.
You need that guy in your corner that says ‘I like the first draft Elon, but what if we changed a few things, I think you’re on to something’. Elon fired all those guys. And he probably flatly refused to change his initial design. So we have this stupid shit.
All I can think about when I hear about how this guy conducts himself in business is Gavin Belson from Silicon Valley
I mean, I doubt he did any of the designing of the truck at all…he may have pointed at some presented options and selected this one, but that’s probably the most “designing” he did…this is the shitty design-work of other people, put on display by him.
Yes. It looks stupid.
I think it’s mostly that the roof comes to a point. If it had a flat roof it’d look a lot better.
Yep.
I like it, but honestly, the bigger reason I want it is the supposed 14k+ tow capacity.
If it doesn’t actually achieve that, which I’m definitely dubious it will, it’s a nonstarter for me.
I’d expect that to arrive at the same time as the unbreakable glass and the full self driving.
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It’s this. I want a Tron themed EV and I want it to not look stupid driving around suburbia.
And I’m afraid that those two things are mutually exclusive. Part of the cyberpunk aesthetic is the lack of soccer moms and hotdog stands.
I think it looks okay but it’s just way too big
It’s smaller than a F-150.
That’s too big too
I disagree with you, but not because I’m a particular fan but because I think trucks are meant to do a job and not be any kind of showpiece or daily errand-runner. To me, a truck should be large and capable and only used when those capabilities are needed.
Honestly, the current consumer electric trucks are silly because their performance envelope is very small compared to their price. They are too expensive and heavy (in lithium and energy consumption) to make sense as a grocery getter and they are too limited to actually haul a real load or take a trailer camping.
I applaud the effort and I do think the F-150 is cool and represents solid progress in the state of the art, but I think the most efficient and environmental option is to keep a smaller efficient electric sedan for most routine driving and maintain an older large diesel truck for when it’s needed. No need to build new iron, there’s plenty of good trucks that can be kept on the road with TLC.
There are also industrial electric and hybrid (turbine-electric) trucks which are amazing, but we’re talking multi million dollar specialty vehicles.
I agree with you fully here. Probably why I have a 500e for commute and a '95 F-250PSD for when I need a truck.
I’ll get one if it has 500 miles of range. I have a reservation but might wait to see how close Chevy gets before making a choice.
It could look like a potato for all I care as long as it can haul a bed full of stuff for 500mi.
Tesla is notorious for lying about their range.
I have a model Y LR w/ 320 mi of range, and I have actually gotten that range before in ideal conditions, but yeah, it’s unlikely at best.
I’m in no rush, I can wait to see what Chevy and Tesla do before deciding. Maybe Rivian comes out with a 500mi R1S and I’ll just deal with a trailer.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/
It’s not just an ideal conditions thing, Tesla is further away from their EPA estimates than every competitor. It’s borderline fraudulent and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it at least land in court.
I would buy any number of things from anyone else because of how big a liar Elon is, and how much he seems to get involved in fucking things up.
I mean, ok, I get that, but it’s never been an issue for me personally. I’ve never had a vehicle that hit it’s EPA estimate when I drive 85+ with the AC at full blast when it’s 105+ outside. My truck is rated for 517 highway and I’ve never got more than 330 out of a tank, so, it is what it is I guess.
Edit: So I’m saying I assume I’ll need 500mi to hit ~350mi, that’s always been my base assumption.
Ah gotcha, well… You might still need even more from Tesla then, because they exaggerate more than their competitors.
Rivian is offering a 400 mile range, with 600 bHP!
It looks like a cheap, “futuristic” car that would be in a vintage sci-fi movie.
I mean, there is nothing else on the road that looks like it for better or worse
I’m indifferent to it, but the amount of people who give a shit is hilarious to me. If it goes 500+ miles, requires no paint and is cheaper than other electric trucks, it’s a win in my book. So weird how people use vehicles as an extension of who they are. It’s a fucking truck. Have you seen the competition? Tundras, F150, Sierra, and Silverado all look like ass.
They do all look like utter shit. But the cybertruck looks like single-digit iq shit, the other ones are at least closer to the center of the bell curve, even if they have tribal tattoos, goatees, and listen to the home depot guitar riff on repeat.
If it goes 500+ miles, requires no paint and is cheaper than other electric trucks, it’s a win in my book
I also would think it’s a win if it flies, turned water into wine, and had an automatic blowjob machine installed, which is about as likely to be true as the rest of this shit.
I thought the concept looked cool, but the one driving around now looks absolutely fucking terrible imo.
It’s intentionally designed to look polarizing. You’re not gonna find a lot of people sitting on the fence on this one and since it looks so different from every other car on the market there’s gonna be a lot of people who aren’t into the change. But yeah I hate it.
Drive one from California to Texas and see where the body panels pop off.
Barstow.
It’s looks like a little kid was drawing a house and halfway said, fuck it, it’s a car and put wheels on it.
Homer Simpson designed a better car than Elon.
I think a sequel to that episode is due.
where elon musk sees the car homer designed and makes a truck version
I ironically like it
Now this I want to see. What did the engineers working on their own side project come up with?
Cyber truck looks absolutely shit. The only thing it had going for itself was that it would have been the very first fully electric pick up truck - when it was first announced.
After more than 5 years Tesla is nowhere close to mass producing the ugly while Ford stole the thunder with announcing and launching the F150 Lightning. If I was in market for an EV pick up, I’d no longer consider Tesla cyber truck, let alone the Fascist ElMo’s shenanigans.
Rivian also has some decent designs. I know that Ford has a stake in the company, but it’s only holding 12%, so I don’t know that they have much say in what goes on over there.
I could’ve sworn Ford sold out in April. Also I love the idea of a Rivian, looks so good, but one of my customers has had one on order for so long it might as well be the cybertruck to him at this point.
The “micron precision” memo that leaked tells me they’re nowhere close to mass production. At my old job, tolerances were pretty much set when we finished a design for a large chemical unit operation – which was typically built within two years. I would expect mass production of something like a car to not to take too much longer.
Good luck getting a base model F150 at a decent price. I tried earlier this year and only 3 dealers East of the Mississippi had the base model and they all wanted $30,000 OVER MSRP. Ford can lick my butt for not making enough base models and trying to push their XLT and platinums starting at $75k. I need a truck to work in not have it open and close the lift gate for me.
At this point I’ll take a shit looking truck at a decent price over whatever the duck Ford and their dealers thought was a good idea with producing so little of the base model, not to mention base model with extended range batteries were ONLY available to fleet purchasers.
Two years ago I was going to but my first ford, my first truck, AND my first electric because it was the same car. On paper the F150 Lightning seems like the most practical family car ever made. Dealer markup and low volume completely killed it. Ford should eliminate dealerships and sell direct with fixed pricing.
It would be great if they just made more base models. They’re “sold out” for this year already, but you still can order the luxury trims for trucks that haven’t been made yet. I’m not convinced that Ford actually wants to sell any base models.
I walked away and bought a Bolt EUV instead.
You are actually allowed to buy directly from the manufacturer. Contact the Ford plant. They’ll sell it to you at MSRP
Not the pro model (base model). You can order direct for all other trims though
It’s almost like lithium supply chains are absolutely fucked, and EVs would get zero traction without government subsidies.
Feels good though. Saving the world. (/S)
We actually just discovered the largest deposit of lithium on earth in Nevada, so those should get unfucked in the next couple years.
Kansas has declared all their children available for the mines.
I see what you did there, stealing thunder with the Lightning.
And yes, Ford’s approach is smart, cheaper, and more utilitarian. Besides, it doesn’t stand out like a smashed thumb in a splint.
It hasn’t even been 4 years
Gotta cut everyone some slack when estimating time since the pandemic. 3 years was 10 years ago.
You’re right on that one, the struggle is real. Comes up in conversation pretty often.
I’m 46. As far as I’m concerned, the 90s was last week.
Same, and my music taste still reflects that :(
28 – the 2010s feel like just a year or two ago, and my music taste reflects that too :(
Keep those designs in your back pocket. Teslas gonna need something to replace the Cybertruck with after it flops and investors finally oust Elon.
They’ll never oust him. If they do, they won’t be able to ride Musk’s reputation as an engineering and tech genius and they’ll have to finally address all the issues plaguing Tesla (terrible service, unreliable build quality, various lawsuits) and I doubt they can afford to actually invest in those things and keep turning a profit.
The sales of the Model Y are more than making up for any dud Tesla puts out right now.
Any day now, the cyber truck will come whizzing down the hyperloop with its sub 10 micron build tolerance and tornado proof glass, fully autonomously driving of course. Any day now.
Obviously, it will have front-mounted flamethrowers.
With its flat body panels flapping in the wind.
Sexy
S3XY.
I really want to see one after it’s hit by a heavy hail storm.
hit by a heavy hail storm.
…or even a champagne bottle!
Amphibiously (briefly)
It’s a finisher car!!!
That was pretty painful. Not even a rumor that he said it, he tweeted it lol
Literally any vehicle can be briefly amphibious.
$10 says he’ll sue to call the vehicle amphibious, autonomous, airborne, and explosion-proof, just because it can briefly be those things.
Any car is amphibious (briefly) 😉
Just after the Tesla semi!
I thought he was always the only engineer tho. This implies he does not do his own designs. Very sus. /s
musk is not an engineer
Engineer =/= designer
are you disabled
He’s not the designer, either, that’s the sad part… He just chose between designs others created.
He’s a designer the way Nigel Tuffnel designed the Stonehenge set piece on a napkin.
It was supposed to be sarcasm but I guess it didn’t translate well via text. I’ll add the /s, sorry :)
(I am an engineer, so this lie by him has always irked me)
I dont believe for a second that any engineer in Tesla was opposed to this design. Everyone wanted to ride on mr Teslas dick after that cybertruck was revealed.
Come on, even Tesla fanboys though it was a joke and were waiting for Elon to roll out the real truck. About five people liked that truck back then.
I’ll be perfectly honest with you. I have never liked the Cybertruck. It looked ridiculous when it came out and there were various online articles that agreed with this at the time. Though I will grant you that there were also a lot of people on the Elon bandwagon who thought it was awesome. One of my best friends actually put down the deposit for one and he and I had a lively debate about it. It was a controversial thing from day 1. And looking back now, this might have been my first clue that Elon was headed off the deep end.
Yeah what I meant was engineers that were at tesla were all on board. These guys work shit hours for shit pay just so they can have Tesla on the CV. This was even more competitive 2 years ago when Tesla was stonks and every word Elon said was cherished. I would agree I was on board with Tesla and I didnt like the cyber truck but im not a Tesla engineer.
The OG cybertruck reminds me of Lara Croft in the OG Tomb Raider.
If you know you know, looks like a shitty prototype.
Maybe the truck should get a chance to throw a steel ball at Elon’s face.
i’m really excited for this isaacson bio; i loved his steve jobs one, but i read that in high school, bright eyed and wanting to go into tech. lol.
Y’know, I wanted one until I learned anything about Tesla as a company or about Elon, and then I decided it’s vaporware and will probably never be delivered for reasons that are stupid. Looking from the outside but with experience shipping big software releases, this smells a lot like what you get when you think of QC not as an engineering discipline, but as a cost to be minimized.
