Interesting that the marketing image on that page is clearly meant to suggest driving around on Mars. I think it is clear from the design and marketing that this truck is meant as a fashion statement not a work vehicle. It will be interesting to see if it catches on. I like some of the ideas used in the vehicle's construction, though I do not like how dangerous it appears to be for pedestrians.
If I made a prediction, it would be that lessons learned from the cybertruck will influence a new generation of vehicle designs. It seems to be a design that takes a lot of risks and tries new things, and I would expect some of that to stick. Tesla certainly has experience making vehicles and a desire to simplify and innovate, so I would expect at least something of this design to inspire new vehicle designs.
A lot of people are saying its ugly. I feel that way too though I am unsure if it will grow on me. But as much as people say that, I think it will catch on anyway. It's a very flashy fashion statement and I think that will appeal to people with money and those aspiring to look like they have more money than they do.
A quote I've seen attributed to Carl Sagan comes to mind, "But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
The Cybertruck is definitely different and attention grabbing. But there's good and bad versions of that and I really feel like this is the latter. Previous Tesla vehicles were also different and bucked certain traditional vehicle design trends but did so in a way that made them look like they were moving beyond current cars and legitimately belonged in the future.
The Cybertruck also looks like the future, but as envisioned by a SyFy movie of the week that stars Lorenzo Lamas and that ran out of money and built their future vehicle out of spray painted plywood sheets. There's quirky bad, it grows on you bad, and then just bad bad. I also find it reminiscent of the Pontiac Aztek and some quick Googling tells me I'm not the only one. This is perhaps not the comparison you want to evoke. I've never seen an in-developed product gets such a huge amount of derision of its visual design and then come out essentially unchanged. Maybe Elon and Tesla have vision far beyond everyone else on this point, but it's difficult to imagine the appeal of this outside of an extremely niche market...perhaps of people who were sad their Pontiac Aztek died and that it didn't cost them more money.
I actually saw an Aztek on the road yesterday, I was shocked
> The Cybertruck also looks like the future, but as envisioned by a SyFy movie of the week that stars Lorenzo Lamas and that ran out of money and built their future vehicle out of spray painted plywood sheets.
I'd argue not. Many trucks are driven by folks in the trades. If I were to guess, I'd put my money on SUVs having the largest fraction of users who rarely if ever push the vehicle to its limits. That or sports cars.
I doubt all these new trucks are for trades people. Honestly most tradespeople I see drive older trucks because they are beating them up anyway. There's a LOT of people driving trucks who are not trades people.
I’ve noticed large regional differences in truck prevalence (vs. more jeeps and even more SUVs, it seemed to my eye, in the relatively-low-truck regions) so that may be account for difference in perception.
In my part of the Midwest, the vast majority of trucks aren’t seeing truck-like use more than a countable-on-fingers number of days per year. A relatively small proportion are owned by tradespeople, who are at least as likely to drive a van-body vehicle as a normal truck, from what I’ve seen. Most are owned as status symbols, in-group signaling consumption, and (no joke, many owners will tell you this) so they’re more likely to “win” in a crash and/or so they feel bigger on the road (again, not mean-spirited speculation, I’ve repeatedly heard that cited as a reason to favor trucks, from truck owners)
Some of these folks will say they really need them for that handful of times a year they tow or haul, but the price and gas consumption difference vs a sedan would likely cover years and years of delivery fees, paid towing, lake slip fees, et c, so that’s not really what’s getting them to sign on the dotted line for these things.
It's a little hard to believe that's the primary market given the design trends in trucks that seemingly make them less attractive and useful to tradespeople while being more appealing to folks in the fashion accessory market.
For example, the trend of trucks getting more and more expensive with luxury features and interiors or the increasing popularity of short beds with giant cabins or the higher ride height that makes it more of a pain if you actually lift things in and out of the bed. Or even the enormous tall fronts that make it a lot more likely you're going to run over stuff you can't see. I'm not sure why anyone with an actual job related need for a truck would be driving those trends.
The ride height is useful for road visibility; you can actually see over the top of smaller vehicles. There are also unintended consequences from how a lot of car regulations are written.
I’d have agreed around the turn of the century but it’s really hard to believe that’s driving the current sales boom. I see new trucks all the time - as part of the morning commute, loaded with frills which wouldn’t hold up in a work environment, and in pristine condition. The actual tradesmen are driving vans and older trucks because those cost half as much. There’s a huge construction sight near me, and the actual workers are arriving on bike, bus, or carpool in a sedan – except for two fancy trucks parked near the foreman’s office, which are pristine (not even mud) and always parked in the same spot morning, lunch, or afternoon.
Now, I live in a city so I’d discount that except that we’ve spent a lot of time driving through rural areas (my son loves railroads) and the same trend holds there, although less intense. You see the pretty rancher cosplay trucks in the rich exurbs, and then when you cross into actual farm or mining country you see a lot fewer of the $70+k new ones and more beat up old trucks which are clearly heavily used, and almost 90s levels of smaller cars because they’re so much cheaper.
I feel like it already has limited social value except as a sort of MAGA hat for Elon. I predict it’ll have some rabid adherents but also develop a reputation as a vehicle for assholes - already in a lot of circles the Tesla brand has a negative association due to Elon behaving like a nepo bully.
This is the tragedy of Musk’s poor self control: there’s a fair chance a Jeep exec is nutty about something, but they’re smart enough to keep their mouths shut and not turn away customers. If he just stuck with the standard Republican mainstream, it’d be fine - everyone assumes rich dudes are voting for the people giving them tax cuts - but he just can’t stop publicly supporting wildly repulsive things which force people to ask whether they can stomach giving him money. The bar is so low and yet he can’t stop tripping over it…
Unfortunately now that Musk is ruler of one of the world's largest communication platforms it's becoming extremely difficult to ignore his increasingly polarized views. And even if you avoid them, other people will not.
I've seen these stickers too, and if you ever see one on a Model 3 or Y the owner is full of shit. Elon was in full-on crazy mode at the latest by 2017, well before either of these models even shipped to customers.
I wish I was just an allowed to like things, without people coming up with some BS, especially political, about why I shouldn't. I suspect the bigger problem will be people like you, being judgmental assholes, rather than the "assholes" just buying something they think is neat.
I'm mostly looking forward to cars/trucks maybe not looking the same as they have for the last 50 years.
> Which for most people includes making judgements about who you are based on the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the style of haircut etc.
But, it's important to understand that the people with some hairstyle aren't the assholes. That would be entirely on the people saying they're assholes for their choice of hair shaft placement.
> And buying a Cybertruck does imply that you either (a) agree with or (b) are ambivalent about Musk's behaviour.
I don't believe most Tesla owners are aware of this. Most that I know see an obvious choice in a product with no real competition.
> I don't believe most Tesla owners are aware of this. Most that I know see an obvious choice in a product with no real competition.
Cybertruck isn't even released yet, all the dates here are 2024.
Meanwhile, Ford 150 Lightning and Rivian actually exist (and have existed for literally years). You can't even properly call the Cybertruck a competitor until its truly available.
And the low-price model has a "might be released in 2025, we don't have the specs either" right there front and center. That's not competition, that's vaporware.
> Cybertruck isn't even released yet, all the dates here are 2024.
I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that only the purchase of a Cybertruck is related to this "behavior", but not a Model 3/Y/X/S, when you said:
> And buying a Cybertruck does imply that you either (a) agree with or (b) are ambivalent about Musk's behaviour.
Is there some Cybertruck related behavior I'm not aware of? Maybe you could state the behavior that Cybertruck and/or Tesla owners are supposedly agreeing with/ambivalent about?
EDIT: Anyone who is seriously considering a vehicle in this form factor is looking at F150 Lightning and/or Rivian right now. The $61k Cybertruck has a "maybe by 2025" date stamped right there, and the $80k Cybertruck says "2024" at the earliest, with no actual month specified.
I think we're all assuming that's "January 2024", but... none of us actually know that. If GM Silverado's EV comes into widespread production/release before Cybertruck its just going to be that much more hilarious.
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The _ONLY_ reason to consider Cybertruck is because you're into Elon's reality distortion field IMO. Anyone who needed a truck this year or last year already got one. And anyone thinking of one this month, or next month (barely: December 2023) ain't looking at Cybertruck either.
Being a Cybertruck fan right now is about trusting Elon and saying "Yeah, I think he's still got this", despite all the other crap he's been doing this year. At least Model X / Model 3 / etc. etc. fans can say they bought the car before Elon went full tilt crazy with Twitter/X.
> At least Model X / Model 3 / etc. etc. fans can say they bought the car before Elon went full tilt crazy with Twitter/X.
The model 3 and Y sold incredibly well throughout the entire year long after the Twitter/X stuff.
You’ll find out that most people don’t associate the cars with an endorsement for Elon outside of a small circle of internet outrage junkies.
The ones that do tend to be quite hypocritically buying services and goods from companies that make use of outsourced poor working condition manufacturing (Apple/Samsung/Google). It’s only an “endorsement” when it’s someone else buying from a bad man and when you don’t want to buy.
Presumably you’re also petitioning your representatives to cancel support for any SpaceX government contracts because you don’t want your tax dollars to fund SpaceX through NASA/NRO launch contracts?
Whatever specs and price you thought the Cybertruck was was completely wrong.
This is $20,000+ over the initially advertised price with -20% payload/towing capacity and we haven't even gotten to to 3rd party tests yet.
There is no $40,000 truck with 500 mile range here. The specs have come in grossly under what was hyped, while being years too late.
Why would anyone still be considering Cybertruck now? The vaporware even continues for a couple more months since we still don't have a published start of sales date.
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If we get rid of specs and the promises/hype made, what is left is just politics and/or trust in Elon. And you have to get rid of specs to be pro-Cybertruck now because F150 Lightning is available, cheaper and well reviewed.
> Why would anyone still be considering Cybertruck now?
Because of its design and access to super charger network. The F150 lightning is absolute trash and if the Cybertruck turns out to have similar performance, most interested people will just be skipping electric trucks and going for gas.
My local Ford lots are packed with both used and new lightnings because it turns out people don’t like an effective 120 mile range in cold/hot weather without even brining the joke towing range into account.
You can be incredulous at the price, which is fine. But if you can’t possibly imagine why anyone would want to buy this, you’re not trying very hard.
> The vaporware even continues for a couple more months since we still don't have a published start of sales date.
Some customers have them now. That’s not vaporware anymore. Put down the axe you need to grind and be happy companies are trying to disrupt the gas truck market, because as of right now the options aren’t moving the needle.
This aged very poorly. Did you not realize that the opening event we were commenting on delivered trucks to customers?
> Ford Maverick is doing wonders actually, and as a 40MPG Hybrid, it's probably got more environmental friendliness than most people realize.
This isn’t a truck in the category we are talking about. The people who buy f-150,250,350s are not getting Mavericks, electric or not.
I think your confusion might be around thinking that trucks are just cars with an open trunk area. If you don’t tow things, none of this will make sense to you and you should stop commenting.
> I don't believe most Tesla owners are aware of this. Most that I know see an obvious choice in a product with no real competition.
We are quite aware and there is plenty of competition now. A lot of us are canceling orders after being burned by Tesla policies, poor customer service, poor vehicle quality, unmet commitments, fantasy autopilot capabilities, etc.
It's just a heuristic I'm not gonna judge someone solely based on it but yeah seeing someone drive up in their Cybertruck won't give me the best of first impressions.
> I don't believe most Tesla owners are aware of this. Most that I know see an obvious choice in a product with no real competition.
Model 3 is a weaker heuristic because there was less competition at the time and less people knew about who Elon really was, but if you are driving a cybertruck I can't help but assume you're a sucker or it's some kind of political statement
Sure but the person judging the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the style of haircut etc. certainly is silly to try to make themselves the non-asshole in this story.
You know that's a good point. I know everyone in my circles will feel that way. You can get away driving a normal Tesla but this one is really going to say something in particular. That you also have this sort of immature brash attitude that has led to Musk's negative public opinion. So you are right that might tank the product.
The folks who buy EVs as a fashion statement and those who buy flashy trucks as a fashion statement seem to have very little overlap. I suppose the plan is to bridge that gap and expand their market. I'm skeptical that it will be a success, but Elon is world class as getting money from people so I won't be surprised if it works out for Tesla.
Everyone with a brain knows this is a vanity project by a very rich person who can do whatever he wants. The success doesn't matter. I don't think that's a good or bad thing, it's just a thing. If anything it demonstrates what a bored rich nerd can do for fun. I guess I might do something like that if I had billions to throw around, maybe I'd just make one for myself though, and not an entire product line that would put my main source of wealth at risk. Or maybe I wouldn't. Hard to say how warped billions would make my mind.
I'm no defender of Musk, but he (and the people working for him) seem pretty serious about making Tesla and SpaceX enduring companies. And honestly, if I had billions to throw around I might want to build rockets and replace ICE cars too.
Having said that, I simply cannot contort myself enough to pretend he is not deliberately tanking Twitter.
I don't disagree with you at all. He has hired very brilliant people and it is easy to list a dozen things that would have taken decades or more to happen if he hadn't gone full nerd-billionaire and thrown gobs of money at his passions. Whether or not Musk himself is smart is besides the point: he took his childhood dreams and spent big money to make them happen. Who wouldn't do that?
That being said I think he's an evil POS, and I think the biggest struggle popular culture is having is that of simple naratives: people are all-or-nothing, black-or-white. It's possible someone can be a crapoid earthling and still cause beneficial things to happen in spite of who they are. That's a hard pill to swallow from either direction, and I have a very tough time with it! I personally don't think the ends justify the means here, but that's because of where I set my bar. Other bars may vary.
Are there issues with EVs on dirt or gravel roads? I've lived in a rural area where driving on both was neccesary and we never gave any thought to what car we were driving.
If I made a prediction, it would be that lessons learned from the cybertruck will influence a new generation of vehicle designs. It seems to be a design that takes a lot of risks and tries new things, and I would expect some of that to stick. Tesla certainly has experience making vehicles and a desire to simplify and innovate, so I would expect at least something of this design to inspire new vehicle designs.
A lot of people are saying its ugly. I feel that way too though I am unsure if it will grow on me. But as much as people say that, I think it will catch on anyway. It's a very flashy fashion statement and I think that will appeal to people with money and those aspiring to look like they have more money than they do.